ALEX BRUMMER: Europe is leading the way in standing up to US big tech

A major failure of Europe is that, for all its technical and technological expertise, it has failed miserably to match the success of the US in creating and expanding the reach of digital giants Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google .

Britain’s only possible digital leader, Arm Holdings, is in limbo, owned by lousy Japanese investor SoftBank.

Chief executive Masayoshi Son, prevented from selling Arm to US rival Nvidia, wants to park it in New York’s Nasdaq market rather than send it back to Britain.

The UK is so eager to encourage the social media behemoths to build campuses and invest in Britain that it is shying away from meaningful digital taxes.

As a result, native retail businesses have disappeared and High Street veterans such as John Lewis, M&S and Sainsbury’s are struggling to compete.

The European Union is fearless in challenging social media monopolies. Despite a long history of trust-busting, taking over Standard Oil’s monopolies of New Jersey and AT&T, successive US Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden have so far done little to ease the digital giants’ anti-competitive grip. on society.

Only Netflix, which has faced competition in the free market from the likes of Disney and Paramount, is under real commercial pressure.

The main confidence breaker is now EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

She challenged Apple over its anti-competitive tax practices in Ireland and was fined £13 billion. This week, Brussels won a famous win over Google over the way it restricts access to Android devices.

This has helped it become the dominant search engine by blocking most of the potential competitors.

The EU was supported by a European court, which fined £3.5 billion. All of this bodes well for the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which aims to challenge Silicon Valley’s dominance.

The law should make it easier for users to switch to competitors, remove and replace apps, change default settings, and opt out of core services. Smaller challengers should find it easier to operate on the dominant player platforms.

The UK digital markets law, outlined in the Johnson government’s Queen’s Speech in May, was part of a UK effort to allow our own competition authorities to control the power of the digital giants.

It is a slow-burning victim of the Tory conflicts and policymakers’ focus on energy policy and the cost of living.

Britain is in danger of slipping into an EU slipstream that could hurt consumer choice and hurt emerging tech start-ups.

Paper Tigers

The banks’ pretext that closing branches and driving customers online is to their advantage must be questioned.

NatWest’s online platform currently makes it impossible to view recent transactions or pay bills before being confronted with a page demanding the user still want to receive paper statements.

Santander writes to its customers: ‘We will send you an email shortly to let you know that we are converting your current and savings accounts to paper-free’ – phrased as a big favor.

The emails, when they arrive, come with a ‘no reply’ warning so the customer doesn’t have a clear opportunity to unsubscribe. In an age of scammers and bank fraud, the idea that all of Santander’s communications will be “digital only” is unreasonable.

Any attempt to disguise paperless movement as an environmental initiative should be considered greenwashing. The beneficiaries are shareholders of Santander, mainly in Spain, and executives who increase bonuses.

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Tokyo story

Japan is rarely a first mover when it comes to global financing.

So the Bank of Japan’s decision to conduct an “interest rate check” — a sign it can step in to try and reverse a plunge against the dollar to its lowest level in 24 years — should be taken seriously. .

The move comes ahead of the G7, G20 and International Monetary Fund’s meeting of finance ministers next month in Washington, where energy costs, inflation and the dollar’s upward appreciation are sure to dominate. Bring it on.