The Europeans Deciding Tech’s Future

The European Commission, after spending years penalizing giant tech firms with fines, has decided to step up the fight against what authorities see as abuses of power. How the battle with Facebook, Amazon and other tech titans plays out depends in part on a major policy difference brewing between the continent’s top two regulators on the question of whether big companies should be broken up to curb their market dominance.

Both Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, the two main commissioners on the European Union’s executive arm responsible for tech policy, are pursuing sweeping changes to how the tech titans operate. But they don’t fully see eye to eye. Breton has lately said only the threat of breakup will force the industry’s biggest players to change their ways. Vestager, on the other hand, favors using fines and new legislation to influence their behavior.

In a body that makes decisions largely on consensus and compromise, the divide between the two officials could complicate the commission’s ability to craft new tech policy. That work, carried out by hundreds of lawyers, economists and policy experts at the Brussels-based commission, is led by a cadre of some 30 key officials identified in the org chart we’re publishing today.