America is the powerhouse for successful businesses. So much so that 80% of the world’s largest 25 companies are based in the U.S. According to data compiled by CompaniesMarketCap.com, Europe’s highest-ranked company lands at No. 25.
It doesn’t end there. Of the world’s top 100 companies, US companies comprise roughly three-quarters (74.2%) of the total. Asia-Pacific is a distant second (13.2%), Europe is in third place (8.3%), and the Middle East rounds them out (3.4%).
American corporate dominance is not an accident but the product of an economic system that encourages entrepreneurship, rewards risk-taking, promotes free markets, and restrains government control.
Europe’s heavy-handed approach hampers business development and growth. Instead of following America’s approach, the European Union (EU) has passed laws to hamper American businesses to the benefit of European businesses.
The Digital Markets Act
In 2024, the EU passed a suite of laws aimed at increasing regulation over large tech companies with massive user bases in Europe, which it calls gatekeepers. These tech companies provide an entryway for business users to reach end users. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) grants the EU new authority beyond established antitrust laws to regulate the business practices of designated gatekeepers. The DMA joined two other laws, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Services Taxes (DST), in targeting U.S.-based tech companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.
EU policymakers aim to prevent harm to consumers, a shift from traditional antitrust, which waits for harm or violations to occur. The problem with such policies is that they unfairly undermine American businesses, placing consumers in harm’s way.
DMA unfairly targets companies of a particular size, but not all of them. According to its definition, a gatekeeper must reach a threshold in turnover or market capitalization for three consecutive years, provide its service in at least three EU countries, and hold 10% of the EU population as monthly active users and at least 10,000 active annual business users. The impact of the DMA will fall heavily on American businesses but somehow spare European companies.
The regulations imposed by the DMA include:
- Restrictions on sharing data between the primary platform and other services
- Bans on self-preferencing or ranking their own products and results above competitors (such as listing AmazonBasics products before other Amazon product results).
- Increasing the portability of data by users and specific user consent to personalized experiences
- Opening up proposed mergers to greater scrutiny
If the EU enforced its new regulations, violators would face steep fines.
The DMA’s Impact on Consumers
While some in the U.S. hail the EU’s efforts as a means of reining in Big Tech companies from an antitrust perspective, they ignore the unintended and intended consequences of these regulations.
Apple explained that the DMA has delayed new features and opened up consumers to greater security and data risks, concluding,
It’s been more than a year since the Digital Markets Act was implemented. Over that time, it’s become clear that the DMA is leading to a worse experience for Apple users in the EU. It’s exposing them to new risks and disrupting the simple, seamless way their Apple products work together. And as new technologies come out, our European users’ Apple products will only fall further behind.
In the blog post “Time for a Reset,” Google pointed to higher prices for consumers, reduced traffic for businesses, difficulty protecting consumers from scammers, and delayed new products and services.
We have proactively made many changes to our products to comply with the DMA, including offering new opportunities like data portability tools for European businesses and developers. But we and other companies still face considerable uncertainty and unpredictability.
As small business owners, online community builders, and parents, women understand the importance of reliability, data security, and lower prices. When regulations intentionally limit innovation, they pay the price in their ability to connect quickly, service their customers, or protect their little ones.
U.S. lawmakers should think critically about why such laws should not be adopted here and opposed globally.