This information is from the March 23, 2019, print edition of The Economist.
Digital giants in Europe
Fifteen of the 20 most financially valued companies are American.
Silicon Valley is the place where the most ingenious ideas meet the smartest money.
Elizabeth Warren, a senator running for president in 2020, wants to dismantle Facebook.
Google has been put under a little more pressure after a $1.7 billion fine.
About 19 out of 20 searches are operated by Google.
Even though Qwant was created in France, it represents only 1% of the market.
Europe represents on average 1/4 of the sales of the 5 IT giants, which are Google – or rather alphabet – , Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft. – GAFAM –
The European policy against the digital giants
The European objective is twofold: that each individual can control the information about him or her, and to open up competition among digital companies.
There are anti-trust precedents, such as IBM in the 1960s and Microsoft in the 1990s.
One point of influence of the European Union is that its digital legislation is often copied in emerging countries.
The new GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation has as its baseline that everyone has the right to access, modify, and determine who will use their personal data.
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