Brits Target Apple’s and Google’s Mobile Power

For all the talk of coming regulations squeezing big tech—and Britain’s antitrust regulator has a new study out today targeting Apple and Google—Wall Street doesn’t seem too bothered. Shares of the iPhone maker and Google’s parent, Alphabet, for instance, have performed better than most tech stocks so far this year, each having fallen around 23%. Is this the wisdom of crowds divining that all this talk of regulations won’t amount to anything? Or do investors have their heads in the sand?

It may be a bit of both. Take today’s report from Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority examining Apple’s and Google’s dominance of the mobile software market, which is a classic example of stating the obvious. (Among the regulator’s “key findings” was that “Apple makes around 80% of its global revenue from device sales, while Google makes around 90% of its revenue from advertising.”) Even so, the report makes a good case—as have congressional inquiries in the U.S.—that the companies’ control of their mobile ecosystems can put rival app developers at a disadvantage. But its remedy is to propose another investigation. In other words, more talk, less action.