We criticize the EU a lot with its obsession with regulating Big Tech. There are at least two examples that justify this obsession
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the AI Law They are two of the great exponents of something that the European Union is highly criticized for: his regulatory obsession. It is true that these regulations restrict companies and can slow down European innovation – this has happened with AI – but these worrying side effects are accompanied by others that are much more welcome. Especially because this regulation has made the world a little more interoperable. There are two great examples of this. First example: USB-C. The adoption of the USB-C connector as the mandatory Being able to charge mobile devices and other hardware products is undoubtedly positive for users. Although the standard has its own problemsits use as a universal connector has avoided the use of proprietary connectors that made interoperability difficult and caused greater problems for the environment in the form of electronic waste. Second example: Universal AirDrop. We have also recently seen how Google offered support on the Pixel 10 to be able to transfer data to an iPhone or iPad thanks to AirDrop support in QuickShare. That support will be extended to other Android phones soon, and that improves interoperability between both platforms. From now on it will be much easier to transfer photos directly from mobile to mobile (be it iPhone or Android) wirelessly, and there we have to thank the European Unionwhich forced Apple to modify the way AirDrop works to comply with the DMA. And there is still more. These efforts to improve interoperability will soon be even more rewarded. Google and Apple have announced their collaboration in making portability between different platforms much easier. Thus, changing from an Android mobile to an iPhone or vice versa it’s going to be easier thanks to the efforts that both companies are making. Why have they made that decision? Again, due to the “regulatory obsession” of the EU. The EU sticks out its chest. Euroregulators in fact celebrated this decision by Google and Apple these days, and affirm that the renewed interoperability “is an example of how the Digital Markets Act (DMA) offers benefits to both users and developers.” That same regulation was what allowed iOS 26 to add support to transfer an eSIM to and from an Android mobile, for example. The EU against (almost) everyone. The EU’s regulatory obsession may often be criticized, but the truth is that it is the great reference when it comes to confronting the unlimited ambition of Big Tech. It has done so in the past with the RGPD or with the DSA and the DMAand now with the AI Law. In all of them the ultimate goal is normally reasonable, although it often happens that the regulation ends up being exaggerated or, as with AI, comes too soon. The last chapter of obsession. European regulators suspect that Google is using content from news publishers and other creators to train their generative AI without permission and without offering compensation. These practices may constitute an abuse of Google’s dominant position in the market, which would negatively affect both competition and content publishers themselves. This research also affects “AI Overviews,” which extract and summarize information from other websites, potentially reducing traffic to those original sources. Brussels Effect. The application of these regulations in a market like the European one causes the so-called “Brussels effect”. For large technology companies such as Apple or Google, it is more efficient and profitable to adopt a single standard for all their products worldwide than to design specific versions only for the European market. Thus, this obsession not only benefits us European citizens (when it does), but also ends up becoming the de facto standard worldwide, as has happened with the USB-C connector. This regulation ends up becoming a powerful engine of global change. It is not perfect by any means, and we are seeing it with the AI Law or the cookie nightmare, but even in those cases the EU seems to have realized and is trying to change things. The challenge of the AI Law. If the DMA pursues interoperability, the AI Law seeks transparency and compensation to prevent these monopolies from consolidating in this era of generative AI. The investigation into Google is not only a defense of copyright, but a preventive measure against competition. Meanwhile, the US and China seem turn a blind eye and we have even seen how the leaders of big technology companies They ask that copyright laws not be applied arguing the famous “fair use” of those contents that have little de jusot, at least for content providers. In Xataka | All the big AIs have ignored copyright laws. The amazing thing is that there are still no consequences
