Vestager Calls For Broader US-EU Collaboration On Big Tech

Recent remarks on the state of Big Tech from Margrethe Vestager, European Commission executive vice president and commissioner, are an indication that Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, may face a bumpy regulatory road ahead.

In an interview with Politico, Vestager, one of the continent’s top regulators, said that cooperation between the U.S. and the EU is taking shape on Big Tech regulation. The stars are aligning due in part to the ascendancy of the Biden administration.

As Vestager told the site, the new administration represents a “dream come true,” adding that “I think it’s really, really interesting what is happening in the U.S. right now — both on competition law enforcement and the signals sent there, with Lina [Khan]’s appointment, with [Jonathan] Kanter, with the executive order.” Vestager was referring respectively to the new chair of the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice antitrust division appointee and Biden’s recent order aimed at promoting competition within the US economy.

Generally speaking, she told the site about Big Tech, “What we want to achieve is that the really important decisions concerning how we use technology are taken in our democracy and not in closed boardrooms, because that doesn’t serve us well.” She recounted that, too, she is being micro targeted for bitcoin.

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