INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
antitrust actions and privacy regulation create opportunities for privacy-first innovationAlastair MitchellContributorAlastair Mitchell is a
partner at multi-stage VC fund EQT Ventures and the fund's B2B sales, marketing and SaaS expert
Ali also focuses on helping US companies scale into Europe and vice versa. After passively watching for many years as tech giants developed
dominant market positions that threaten consumer privacy and stifle competition, American antitrust regulators seem to have finally grasped
what’s happening and decided to take action. This increasing scrutiny, which tacitly acknowledges that Europe’s more proactive
regulators were perhaps right all along, is helping unleash a wave of tech startups at the expense of big tech
By holding industry titans accountable over the privacy and use of our data, regulators are encouraging long overdue disruption of
everything from back-end infrastructure to consumer services.Over the past decade, Facebook, Google, Amazon and others have tightened their
grip on their respective domains bybuying up hundreds of smaller rivals, with little U.S
But as their dominance has grown, and as egregious privacy violations and mishaps proliferate, regulators can no longer look the other
way.In recent months, American regulators have announced a flurry of new antitrust investigations into big technology companies
The Federal Trade Commission has votedto fine Facebook $5 billion for misusing consumer data, theU.S
House Judiciary Committee is probing the tech industry for antitrust violations and50 attorneys general announced an antitrust probe into
officials are even considering establishing adigital watchdog agency.It’s hard to understand why it took so long, though perhaps U.S
officials were loath to target domestic companies that were driving huge economic growth and creating millions of new jobs
In contrast, their counterparts across the pond have been on an antitrust tear under the watch of European Union antitrust commissioner (and
now also EVP of digital affairs) Margrethe Vestager
Now that regulators from both Europe and the United States are pursuing antitrust probes, they have exposed areas where startups can
innovate. Startups take on big tech
