Silicon Valley’s Realtors, Like Its Bankers, Are Having a Tough MonthRead More

The Europeans Deciding Tech’s Future

By  |  Feb. 8, 2021 9:02 AM PST

The European Commission, after spending years penalizing giant tech firms with fines, has decided to step up the fight against what authorities see as abuses of power. How the battle with Facebook, Amazon and other tech titans plays out depends in part on a major policy difference brewing between the continent’s top two regulators on the question of whether big companies should be broken up to curb their market dominance.

Both Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, the two main commissioners on the European Union’s executive arm responsible for tech policy, are pursuing sweeping changes to how the tech titans operate. But they don’t fully see eye to eye. Breton has lately said only the threat of breakup will force the industry’s biggest players to change their ways. Vestager, on the other hand, favors using fines and new legislation to influence their behavior.

In a body that makes decisions largely on consensus and compromise, the divide between the two officials could complicate the commission’s ability to craft new tech policy. That work, carried out by hundreds of lawyers, economists and policy experts at the Brussels-based commission, is led by a cadre of some 30 key officials identified in the org chart we’re publishing today.

Get access to exclusive coverage
Read deeply reported stories from the largest newsroom in tech.
Latest Articles
 
The 1:1 ai
An AI Researcher Tries to Build Good AI While Burning Down the Bad
Art by Clark Miller.
In the hours after Margaret Mitchell was fired by Google over email in February 2021, she ran to the bathroom and threw up. “I was just so terrified that I was never going to get a job in tech again, that my name had been scarlet lettered,” she told me over an hourlong Zoom this week, calling from her home outside Seattle. That was not the case. In the ensuing days and weeks, as her...
Latest Briefs
 
Amazon Starts Latest Round of 9,000 Layoffs
Nasdaq to Launch Crypto Custody Service By End of June
Taking Aim at OpenAI, Databricks Releases ‘Dolly’ Language Model
Stay in the know
Receive a summary of the day's top tech news—distilled into one email.
Access on the go
View stories on our mobile app and tune into our weekly podcast.
Join live video Q&A’s
Deep-dive into topics like startups and autonomous vehicles with our top reporters and other executives.
Enjoy a clutter-free experience
Read without any banner ads.
Tonal’s now-shuttered Palo Alto, Calif. retail store. Photo by Getty.
Exclusive startups
Tonal’s Valuation May Fall 90% in ‘Cram-Down’ Financing
Tonal, a fitness startup with a cadre of celebrity backers, is crunched for cash after failing to find a buyer.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk last August. Photo by Bloomberg
Exclusive startups electric vehicles
SpaceX Plans New Funding With Backing From Saudi, UAE Investors
A subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s investment fund and an Abu Dhabi investment firm are planning to invest in a multibillion-dollar funding round for SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, according to people familiar with the investor discussions.
Clockwise from top left: Julie Bornstein, Esther Crawford, Mark Hammond, Max Cutler, Kağan Sümer. Photos via Julie Bernstein, Robert Cowherd, Microsoft, Wikimedia and Kağan Sümer.
Free Agents startups
On the Market: The Founders Who Joined Microsoft, Spotify, Coinbase and Twitter
Call them acqui-fires. Several founders who took positions at the bigger tech companies that bought their startups recently lost their jobs when layoffs rolled through Silicon Valley.
Bill Gurley in 2019. Photo by Bloomberg
Exclusive
Good Eggs Cuts Its Valuation 94% in Lifeline Financing as More Startups Get Desperate
As more startups struggle to raise money from venture capitalists and approach bankruptcy, they are going to extreme lengths to stay afloat.
Art by Clark Miller.
Opinion startups economy
SVB Is Dead. Long Live SVB.
We all know how it began. It started on March 9, when the run on Silicon Valley Bank made the innovation economy totter and threatened a global financial crisis.
Art by Mike Sullivan
Exclusive microsoft startups
Amazon Faces Moment of Truth on Alexa as ChatGPT Steals Its Thunder
At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, Amazon announced one of its biggest partnerships yet to help make its Alexa voice assistant ubiquitous: a deal with Toyota to integrate Alexa into the auto giant’s cars.