< Key Hightlight >

Regulators will come after Big Tech companies in 10 main regulatory arenas: data privacy, data security, antitrust, tax avoidance, misinformation, online harm, obstruction of justice, copyright, net neutrality, and fintech regulation. 

This report focuses on antitrust regulation in relation to the way the big internet platforms control and monopolize user data. Many are accused of trampling on competitors to maintain their dominance. While regulators have attempted to take on Big Tech before, there is a growing consensus that new antitrust rules and approaches are needed to address the complexity of the digital economy.

Scope

This report looks at how antitrust is impacting the tech, media, and telecom (TMT) industry globally. 

It identifies the companies that will be impacted by antitrust regulation, as well as the main trends shaping the antitrust theme. 

It includes details of regulatory approaches to antitrust by country and a timeline, showing the major milestones in this theme.

Key Highlights

Antitrust watchdogs are increasingly concerned that digital platforms use acquisitions to crush competitors. Some regulators are asking leading platforms to notify them of their M&A plans in advance so they can assess their potential impact on the ecosystem. Greater scrutiny of M&A deals could result in more investigations and pre-empt anti-competition issues.

Reasons to buy

Existing competition laws were not conceived for the digital era, particularly when defining significant market power and anticompetitive practices. They have struggled to adapt to the challenges of the digital economy, where tech giants thrive thanks to their extensive, established customer networks and low-cost capital. They have also failed to grasp the complexity of digital platforms, which typically connect many sides of a market (for example, consumers, advertisers, developers, and publishers in the digital advertising market). In single-sided markets, the consumer feels the burden of monopoly through higher prices, but this is not easy to establish in multi-sided markets. Across the world, we are witnessing a rethinking of antitrust rules that will determine the future of the internet and our data.

Companies mentioned

Alibaba 

Amazon 

Apple 

Google 

Facebook 

Microsoft 

Tencent 

Shopify 

Spotify 

Etsy 

Telegram 

Signal 

Rakuten 

Epic Games 

The New York Times 

News Corp 

Guardian Media Group 

The Financial Times (Nikkei) 

Sanoma 

Bloomberg 

Thomson Reuters 

S&P Global 

Wolters Kluwer 

Daily Mail & General Trust 

Relx 

Bureau Veritas 

Quebecor 

Samsung 

Lenovo 

LG 

Sony 

SenseTime 

ByteDance 

eBay