Google, Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Apple and Microsoft (GAFAM) are the undisputed giants of the digital world. Their dominance on the global market in this new, data-driven economy gives them considerable influence. So much, in fact, that they can be seen as the true rulers of the Internet, accountable to no one. Europe, on the other hand, has set its sights on regulating the Internet in the face of the abuses it generates for Internet users.
The challenges posed by digital giants
The American digital giants have reached a size and influence that enable them to exercise almost total domination in certain sectors.
- 90% of the online search engine market is held by Google.
- 40% of e-commerce market share is held by Amazon.
- 70% of the media and social networking market is held by Facebook.
- 23% of the operating systems market is controlled by Microsoft.
More recently, some of companies are gradually beginning to assert themselves: the BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi). This concentration of power in the hands of these private companies raises a number of challenges.
Firstly, this creates a competitive imbalance in the market, making it difficult for smaller companies to compete. Access to substantial financial resources, a massive user base and the ability to impose prices and the rules of the game for the giants erodes competition, limits innovation and can lead to anti-competitive practices. In response to this situation, the European Union is striving to counter this phenomenon by being more meticulous about the practices of these giants, and by condemning them for anti-competitive practices. This has notably been the case with Google for abusing its dominant position in online search or for favoring its services in search results. But also by adopting measures such as the Digital Market Act (DMA) to limit the anti-competitive practices of “gatekeepers” by imposing stricter rules on competition.
Another challenge is content regulation. Social networks and platforms have become the new theaters of hate, disinformation, discrimination and pornography. The Internet giants are often at the heart of debates about their algorithmic parameters and the mechanisms put in place to moderate such content. Recently, seven French families announced that they were taking Tik Tok to court because of the suicide of a few teenage girls, accusing the social network’s personalized and recommendation algorithm of having contributed to the suggestion of such content. Faced with this situation, the European Union has adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA), which encourages platforms to better control the content they broadcast and to guarantee user safety, by prohibiting what is illegal offline, online.
Finally, these companies collect colossal amounts of user data, sometimes without their knowledge, posing a risk to privacy and the security of personal information. The lack of adequate control over the use of this data has led to scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica affair. Thus, the protection of personal data is crucial in the face of this asymmetry of information to the detriment of users. Faced with this, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been a major turning point in the regulation of personal data within the European Union, constituting a powerful lever of pressure on players in the digital sector.
Resistance from the digital giants
Despite the scale of Europe’s efforts, the digital giants are firmly resisting certain regulations, which they often consider too restrictive or even ineffective. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the end of fact-checking, leaving Internet users to regulate content themselves. This announcement by one of the digital giants demonstrates the difficulty of imposing European regulation on them.
The main argument put forward by the digital giants, most of whom are American, is the preservation of freedom of expression and the communication of users’ ideas. A veritable sacrosanct right in the United States, freedom of expression allows the digital giants to assert that their role is not to censor content, but to enable a space where all ideas, even the most controversial, can be exchanged. This approach runs counter to that of the European Union, which seeks to protect citizens and guarantee them a secure digital environment.
This resistance highlights a major conflict between the desire to protect individual freedoms on platforms and the need to put in place safeguards to prevent the spread of harmful content, such as disinformation or hate speech. The European authorities, on their part, are seeking to impose a balance between freedom of expression and the responsibility of platforms, but the task remains complex in the face of the considerable influence and resources of the digital giants.
Conclusion
Regulation of the digital giants by the European Union is a complex and major challenge. While notable advances have been made with the RGPD, the DSA or even the DMA, marking progress in the ambition to regulate the digital sector dominated by a handful of powerful foreign players, there are many obstacles for the European Union to overcome. Indeed, the latter must contend with the desire of the aforementioned giants to preserve and enforce their conception of freedom of expression in the digital space of the Internet.
This calls for an international dialogue involving governments and the digital giants. The aim would be to take account of the fact that the Internet is a borderless space, making it difficult to apply different laws and points of view uniformly, in order to officially establish a single, harmonized digital governance capable of reconciling divergences and ensuring effective, fair regulation. This would make it possible to protect users’ rights without compromising the fundamental principles of freedom of expression, and perhaps make Europe a model of digital governance capable of standing up to the Internet giants.
Clara Bonnard
Master 2 Cyberjustice – Promotion 2024/2025
Sources:
Les chiffres clés impressionnants à connaitre sur les GAFAM – Ses infos
Titans de la technologie analyse des actions GAFAM et de leur domination – FasterCapital
Sept familles françaises annoncent assigner TikTok en justice après des suicides d’adolescentes
L’Europe régule les géants du numérique ! – Commission européenne
Meta abandonne le fact-checking aux USA : quelles conséquences juridiques ?
