Don't Break Up Tech Giants, European Antitrust Chief Says

If we have to break up tech giants, it should be the last measure to take, according to Margrethe Vestager, a European Union’s competition commissioner.

She stressed that when breaking up these tech giants, we are dealing with private property, the owners of these businesses poured their money, their heart and mind to make them successful.

Margrethe Vestager, a European Union’s competition commissioner

Since 2014 when Vestager took up the Commission antitrust brief, she has been feared by tech giants due to her major interventions. This time, however, while opposition politicians are going hard against tech firms, she advocates focusing on data streaming instead of hammering them.

The commissioner believes that we should address antitrust cases, the tying of products, misuse of dominant position, the demotion of others, and the self-promotion and assess that with this approach, whether or not we can fix the problem and bring back fairness to the market so that smaller competitors can grab their chance. Vestager said because smaller players can become the next big ones, who will give the best ides for users.

She also took an example for this kind of measure, last month, major political institutions signed an agreement on regulating transparency on online platforms.

She suggested that regulators should pay concentrate on making digital sector inquiries as well as hearings to clearly understand how markets are running. From those, we can obtain the necessary information to create and shape smart data-focused interventions.

However, Vestager’s term as antitrust chief will end on November 1, according to her confirmation. Previously, she also made suggestions about data access regulation as a better choice to control digital giants compared with breaking them up.

Vestager’s opinion has got support from several European regulators, including the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) with its last month announcement to limit Facebook’s use of data from its services.

FCO’s move would be much of an explanation to Facebook’s plan to merge three of its platforms, calling it a ‘pro-privacy move’ with encrypted contents but actually trying to deal with regulatory interventions which separate and monitor internal flows of data at the product level.

Although the Competition Commission isn’t investigating Facebook or the social media sector, Vestager’s department does look into the way social giants handle data. She also mentioned good signs of an actual start for this debate, including visits and meetings with people on The Hill.

Vestager is not fully convinced by Facebook’s recent appreciation of privacy, she said it would be good news for consumers if the company is really going for the sake of users. However, at this point, she will not just listen to Mark Zuckerberg and overlook what he’s really doing.