Europe Wants Tech Champions, Then Makes Them Share the Trophy
Europe wants its own technology champions. It just seems less comfortable with what champions look like once they arrive.
The European Commission’s latest Digital Markets Act (DMA) decisions capture that tension. Europe wants more innovation, investment, and globally competitive digital platforms. Yet when a company assembles the data, technology, distribution, and complementary services needed to compete worldwide, Brussels increasingly treats those advantages as inputs to be shared with rivals.
On July 16, the Commission adopted binding measures requiring Google to give eligible search engines, including AI chatbots with search functions, access to anonymized Google Search data. A parallel decision requires Google to open 11 categories of Android functionality to competing AI assistants. These include sensor inputs, app data, operating-system controls, screen automation, on-device computing resources, background execution, and hotword activation.
The Commission says these mandates will promote contestability, consumer choice, and innovation. The immediate gains are easy to see. Rivals receive valuable inputs, developers gain access to Android features, and consumers may encounter more services competing within Google’s platform.
The costs are harder to spot and easier to ignore. Forced access may weaken incentives to build proprietary datasets, reduce returns on risky platform investments, increase cybersecurity risks, and push competing systems toward the same design. It may also lead companies to delay, degrade, or withhold future products in Europe.
These decisions therefore deserve scrutiny as more than access mandates. They alter the rules governing who bears the cost of innovation and who receives the reward.