The US Justice Department is considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell off parts of its business in what would be a historic break-up of one of the world’s biggest tech companies. Antitrust enforcers are weighing a break-up to mitigate the Alphabet business’s dominance in search, the agency said in a court … Read more
Google won a court fight with the European Union over a €1.5 billion (US$1.7 billion) fine for thwarting competition for online ads, partly making up for last week’s crushing defeat in a separate judgment for abusing its monopoly powers. Judges at the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg backed the Alphabet unit’s challenge to a fine … Read more
“I cannot say it because it’s a sort of open secret but yes, it became clear at some point that the name [of Thierry Breton] was part of the negotiation,” a French official with knowledge of the talks said on condition they remain anonymous. The rumor that Macron would eventually drop Breton circulated for weeks, … Read more
“With the losses that we have had, you know, everybody around me, they said: ‘Brace for negative impact,’” she said. “So this is very positive and I had prepared for a stiff upper lip, facing a possible defeat.” “On a scale from one to 100 of surprise and no surprise, I think I’m in 99,” … Read more
“I think if the [European] Parliament got any idea that it was a political decision in order to help the president-elect to get the support of Italy, Parliament would be furious and that could cause gigantic problems for the president,” Vestager told a Thursday press conference. “I find it a bit difficult to understand how … Read more
Vestager warned that artificial intelligence is “developing at breakneck speed.” She said they have “a number of other preliminary antitrust investigations ongoing into various practices in AI-related markets,” without giving any details. “We cannot just sit back and see how things pan out,” she said. “Now is the time to act. Strong competition enforcement is … Read more
Microsoft faces a hefty antitrust fine after the European Commission on Tuesday accused it of illegally linking its chat and video app Teams with its Office product, giving it an unfair advantage over rivals such as Slack. Two decades after Microsoft’s last EU fine, the EU competition watchdog’s latest action was triggered by a 2020 … Read more
Apple has a number of “very serious” issues under the European Union’s sweeping rules aimed at reining in Big Tech, the bloc’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager told CNBC on Tuesday, following reports that regulators are preparing charges against the iPhone maker. In March, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, opened a probe into Apple, … Read more
“I have taken, you know, the advice of my children. I have three daughters, and they just say: put down that phone, mum,” she said. When asked if her kids don’t use their phones as much, the 56-year-old quipped: “They don’t.” She went on to lay out how social media platforms’ ability to easily reach … Read more
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, “has to delete the illegal ad immediately and take measures to prevent such breaches,” Alexandra Geese, the Greens’ point person on platforms, told Playbook when shown the ad. “The platforms will only abide by our rules if we show our political will to enforce them.” Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager told … Read more
