admin 
The Big Tech professes to have the loftier aim of building a more equitable global society.
However, governments, business leaders and the general public are coming to view its overarching power and influence with caution and suspicion. Consequently, the European Union’s regulatory crackdown is intensifying across multiple legal frameworks with over 60 active antitrust and regulatory probes targeting US technology giants.
The EU has put in place two laws: the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, both better known by their initials, DMA and DSA.
Europe’s top court on July 2 dismissed Google’s challenge against a €4.1bn ($4.8bn) EU antitrust fine over Android, largely upholding regulators’ findings that the company used its mobile operating system to shut out rivals.
The European Commission originally imposed a €4.3bn penalty in 2018, which a lower tribunal reduced in 2022. Google has accumulated almost €11bn in EU antitrust fines over the past decade.
Italy’s privacy watchdog in February ordered an Amazon.com unit to stop using personal data from more than 1,800 warehouse workers near Rome.
Germany’s cartel office in the same month barred Amazon from imposing price caps on retailers selling through its German marketplace and sought recovery of profits it said were generated through anti-competitive conduct.
Italy’s competition authority fined Apple and two subsidiaries €98.6mn last December over alleged abuse of a dominant position in the mobile apps market.
The European Commission fined Apple €500mn in April 2025 under the DMA, while Germany’s Federal Court of Justice upheld a regulatory designation subjecting the company to tighter competition controls. Meta said in March it would allow AI rivals access to WhatsApp for a fee after the Commission threatened interim measures during an abuse-of-dominance investigation.
The EU ordered Meta yesterday to give rival AI chatbots access to its WhatsApp platform for free within five working days as it carries out an antitrust probe, or risk a heavy fine.
Meta said it would appeal the order, which follows the launch in December of an EU investigation into the US firm. Britain’s competition regulator said in March it would investigate Microsoft’s business software ecosystem, including software licensing practices in cloud computing.
Microsoft avoided a potentially hefty EU antitrust fine by promising in September reduced prices for Office products excluding its Teams app after the European Commission had charged the US company with illegally bundling the app with its Office software suite. EU regulators charged TikTok in February with breaching online content rules through what they described as addictive platform features.
The European Commission said in January it would investigate X’s AI chatbot Grok over concerns it may disseminate illegal content, including manipulated images. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also opened a formal investigation into Grok in February, while French police raided X’s offices later as part of a separate probe.
The Big Tech, despite its overarching global reach, has for long been facing a widening trust deficit, both from the users and regulators.
For sure, technology has become an inseparable part of everyday life across the world. But the business model of social media, with its stifling data monopoly, may be undermining the well-being of its users.
Fundamentally, social media users are driven by the same ancient desire: Human Connection. But that has for long been crowded out by addictive technology, amazing products and invasive corporate branding.
