Jean-Claude Juncker, the next head of the European Commission, plans to implement a new digital strategy for the Continent. Europe, he believes, needs to become better equipped to defend itself from the US and Asia.To the competition regulators in Brussels, Google has something akin to frequent flier status. Hardly a week goes by that an injured company doesn’t deliver incriminating information about the Internet giant to the European Union capital.The flood of complaints is coming from a growing number of markets where the company wasn’t previously active, Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia wrote a letter some months ago to his colleagues on the European Commission, the EU’s executive. Among those markets are social networks, streaming, mobile phone operating systems and mobile apps. Among the latest complainants, the letter notes, is an advertising platform, the alliance of European photo agencies known as CEPIC, the Open Internet Project, which unites European publishers, and Deutsche Telekom. “It can be safely predicted that Google’s compliance with EU competition law will be closely monitored for a long while,” the letter stated.
www.spiegel.de/international/business/eu-wants-to-challenge-google-with-new-digital-strategy-a-978521.html