In the last 20 years several American tech companies have grown huge with very little challenge from European antitrust or tax authorities.
Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft...
Rules regarding abuse of dominant position could have been applied much stricter. Some of these companies have 90-something percent market share on several of the geographic and product markets they operate in. But not one of them has been forced to split up. MS was forced not to include IE in Windows and MS and Intel were fined (fined!), but not one of them have been forced to open access to (or just make it possible to export) their social graph. Apple is still allowed to block other content providers from selling movies and music iPhone and iPad. The iphone costs more or less the same all over Europe as does the music and movies on it. Amazon has been allowed to apply predatory pricing for more than a decade.
Tax laws could have been designed so that companies were taxed on their European profits, just like the European companies they compete against.
These companies barely employ Europeans, barely pay any European tax, but they hold thousands of European patents and make hundreds of billions of euro in Europe and operate in markets where there is curiously enough still not/no longer serious competition from European companies.
I don't believe for a second that NSA hasn't used their spying to improve American competitiveness.
Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft...
Rules regarding abuse of dominant position could have been applied much stricter. Some of these companies have 90-something percent market share on several of the geographic and product markets they operate in. But not one of them has been forced to split up. MS was forced not to include IE in Windows and MS and Intel were fined (fined!), but not one of them have been forced to open access to (or just make it possible to export) their social graph. Apple is still allowed to block other content providers from selling movies and music iPhone and iPad. The iphone costs more or less the same all over Europe as does the music and movies on it. Amazon has been allowed to apply predatory pricing for more than a decade.
Tax laws could have been designed so that companies were taxed on their European profits, just like the European companies they compete against.
These companies barely employ Europeans, barely pay any European tax, but they hold thousands of European patents and make hundreds of billions of euro in Europe and operate in markets where there is curiously enough still not/no longer serious competition from European companies.
I don't believe for a second that NSA hasn't used their spying to improve American competitiveness.