Regulatory Defense of the EU in Digital Markets 2: Why the US, Not China?

For example, the history of the current EU antitrust action against Apple dates back to 2007. The EU’s hostile stance towards Apple has a long history and includes previous investigations into alleged violations of state aid legislation in Ireland and potential breaches related to Apple Pay and Apple Music. With the adoption of the Consumer Protection Act (DMA), which formalizes the status of Apple and other major American tech companies as permanent subjects of antitrust regulation, the EU seemingly opened the gates for even more actions, with Apple already facing more investigations under the DMA (three in total) than any other controlling company.

One DMA investigation concerns Apple’s restrictions on app developers directing users to external purchase options, which the European Commission condemned as a breach of DMA rules. The second relates to the design of Apple’s web browser choice screen, which the Commission claims does not allow users to freely choose their preferred browsers. The third concerns Apple’s commission structure and the terms for downloading third-party apps and distributing alternative app stores, which the Commission also considers non-compliant with the DMA. Aside from these three ongoing investigations, the EU has now issued draconian preliminary findings in two separate cases regarding Apple’s compatibility obligations under the DMA, which effectively would require Apple to share any innovative integrations of connected devices with third parties.

Just weeks before the start of the DMA investigation into Apple’s broader practices, the Commission, after years of investigation, fined Apple €1.8 billion (the third largest competition fine to date) for anticompetitive behavior in the music streaming market, which fell under the wider DMA investigation.

Perhaps Apple’s biggest battle with the EU was over the favorable tax regime it allegedly received in Ireland. This dispute culminated in a September 2024 ruling by the European Court asserting that Ireland granted illegal state aid to Apple, ordering the country to recover €13 billion in compensation!

The potential amount of fines facing Apple solely under the DMA line is estimated at $38 billion, approximately equal to the entire GDP of Estonia!

Another EU “favorite” is Google — an American multinational technology company whose primary source of income is advertising. Specifically, Google sells ads on its websites and apps and acts as an intermediary between advertisers wishing to place ads online and publishers (third-party websites and apps) that can provide ad space.

Google offers several advertising technology services that mediate between advertisers and publishers to display ads on websites or mobile apps. The company manages two advertising buying tools — “Google Ads” and “DV 360”; the publisher ad server “DoubleClick For Publishers” (DFP); and the advertising exchange “AdX.”

On September 5, 2025, the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion for violating EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in the adtech sector. Google achieved this by favoring its own ad tech services over competing providers to the detriment of advertisers and online publishers. The Commission required Google to (1) stop the self-preferencing practice; and (2) take measures to remove inherent conflicts of interest in the ad tech supply chain.

The Commission found that Google holds a dominant position in the publisher ad server market with DFP and in programmatic ad-buying tools for the open internet with Google Ads and DV360. Both markets cover the entire European Economic Area.

Specifically, the Commission concluded that from at least 2014 to the present, Google abused its dominant position in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) by:

Giving preferential treatment to its AdX ad exchange in the ad selection process conducted by its main publisher ad server DFP, for example by pre-notifying AdX of the highest bid from competitors it needed to beat to win the auction.

Favoring its AdX exchange by Google Ads and DV360 placing bids on ad exchanges. For instance, Google Ads avoided competing ad exchanges and mostly bid on AdX, making it the most attractive ad exchange.

The Commission concluded these actions were aimed at deliberately conferring a competitive advantage to AdX and could exclude competing ad exchanges. This strengthened AdX’s central role in the ad tech supply chain and allowed Google to charge high fees for its services.

In June 2021, the Commission launched an official investigation into possible anticompetitive behavior by Google in online advertising technologies. In June 2023, the Commission sent Google a statement of objections, to which the company responded in December 2023.

The €2.95 billion fine was set based on the Commission’s 2006 fines guidelines.

When determining the fine amount, the Commission considered factors including the duration and severity of the infringement and the relevant AdX turnover in the EEA affected by the violations, which determined the fine’s baseline. Additionally, the Commission noted that Google had previously been fined for abusing a dominant position.

Why, then, does the EU so fiercely defend its tech-digital sovereignty against the US, and to a lesser extent against China, although the transatlantic civilizational world apparently has much more in common compared to the “Red Dragon” world? Unfortunately, the close economic ties between the EU and the US have always been complicated by Europe's “American complex.” The old European world has long been fervently anxious about its geopolitical lag behind the US. Since Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber wrote in his 1968 book “The American Challenge” that American companies such as IBM were conquering market share and entering the European market, this deeply ingrained meme about the need to resist the American surge has deeply penetrated the minds of the European establishment. Today, the EU continues the tradition of viewing America as its key economic competitor. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in her election program: “It is not too late to achieve technological sovereignty” in relation to the United States.

But another reason lies in the EU’s belief that it can become the world leader — indeed, it must be — with its green, value-based capitalism serving as a “third way” between the American and Chinese models. In the recently published 2025 Strategic Foresight report by the European Commission — an annual guide defining long-term political priorities — the Commission calls for a “European model of innovation based on values” as an alternative to the American “market” and Chinese “state” approaches.

In fact, this means the EU has adopted an aggressive defensive stance against America’s “digital imperialism,” dreaming of achieving its own “digital sovereignty,” while underestimating China’s capabilities in the digital sphere. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said it is not too late to reach technological sovereignty in areas such as AI, blockchain, and quantum computing. European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton stated that the EU’s efforts in this direction, including restricting American company access, “are not a protectionist concept but simply aimed at having European technological alternatives in vital areas on which we are currently dependent.”

Meanwhile, China already dominates advanced industries and has become a leading innovator in technologies such as nuclear energy, electric vehicles and their batteries, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and quantum computing. For example, China holds a significant share of the world’s AI research results and patent applications.

So, the EU strives for digital sovereignty and, strangely enough, sees a greater threat to this sovereignty from its democratic ally, the United States, than from China. The EU is ready to split from the United States, but not from China. American analysts are simply astonished by this “pro-China” stance.

Back in the Obama administration era, at a meeting of the US-China Expert Group on Innovation, a high-ranking Chinese government official expressed concern about a possible G2 technological alliance of America and Europe against China, rather than separate actions by countries—even all those in the G20. It seems China now feels secure because trade tensions between the EU and the US are quite high, and the EU refuses to call the US a key ally and China a key adversary.