BRUSSELS: The European Union is weighing a major investigation into how Internet platforms like Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. operate in Europe, amid concerns that such companies have too much power over smaller firms.
The investigation, proposed in an internal EU discussion paper seen by The Wall Street Journal, comes amid a flurry of other probes into various U.S. tech companies, whose dominance of Europe’s online landscape is causing deep concern in top policy circles. The investigation being considered would be broader in nature, encompassing a general review of all Internet platforms and how they operate.
The initiative was discussed last week by top officials the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, which is working on a signature plan to reform the region’s digital economy that aims to establish Europe as a global leader in information technology. The investigation could lead to new laws or regulations aimed at rebalancing the relationship between Internet giants and all types of firms.
The growing market power of online platforms in the digital economy, as well as the approach to dealing with illegal/harmful content online, raise a number of issues that warrant further investigation,” says the internal paper, which was produced by EU Digital Chief Andrus Ansip and distributed to his fellow EU commissioners.
