America and Europe clamp down on big tech

FIVE YEARSEUThe Economist ago antitrust was a backwater. In America complacent trustbusters had failed to spot the rise of big tech firms. In the European Union they noticed it, but didn’t do much. But the competition cops have at last sprung. On December 15th the unveiled two draft digital-services laws that would create a sweeping supervisory apparatus to control Silicon Valley. In America the federal government has just launched antitrust cases against Google and Facebook. These moves mark the biggest shift in competition policy in a generation, so you might expect investors to be worried that big tech firms are under serious threat. Instead, their reaction has been Olympian indifference. The market value of the five biggest Silicon Valley firms has risen by 46% in 2020, to reach $7.2trn. Antitrust’s credibility deficit reflects a lack of transatlantic unity and the flaws of two very different strategies.