Regulating the internet isn’t easy. And it shouldn’t be. Like any other industry, the internet is vast, and no one solution can solve all of its problems. However, in order to have an industry that doesn’t just continue to grow, but also benefits its consumers, regulation is a necessity.
While internet regulation in the United States has been described as old and outdated, this isn’t the case worldwide. Most notably, the European Union has committed to creating new internet regulations in an attempt to manage the ever-growing tech industry. While the U.S. cannot copy all of the EU’s regulations due to discrepancies in their respective legal systems, it still provides an insightful case study to see how effective internet regulation can be. Given this, the U.S. should closely monitor the recent technology regulations and lawsuits in the EU to inform their own policy.
Historically, the relationship between the U.S. and internet regulation has been, at best, lackadaisical. Despite repeated pushes for federal internet regulations, whether concerning youth safety or data protection, these attempts almost always come up short. At the root of this inaction is a base of legislators that continuously find issues with some aspect of the proposed regulation, never allowing it to move forward on the congress floor. However, by basing U.S. legislation on real regulation in other countries, it could be less susceptible to these extensive criticisms.
Practical regulation is perfectly demonstrated by the EU, host to one of the largest economies in the world. The EU, unlike the U.S., is at the forefront of internet regulation. Along with other new regulations in the past decade, the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation — a law that prioritizes user privacy and security on the internet and levies penalties even toward companies not based in the EU. More recently, the EU enacted the Digital Markets Act, a provision that enforces fair trade throughout the internet, preventing monopolies from forming in a variety of markets online.
These two EU laws represent only a fraction of the actions they’ve taken to regulate the internet. In addition to the recent enactment of the DMA, the EU fined Apple $2 billion dollars for its market dominance over app stores and its harm done to music streaming apps. In particular, Apple limited the sale of apps to its own app store, which directed consumers away from cheap streaming services and toward Apple’s music streaming service. By fining Apple and other companies such a substantial amount of money for its antitrust violations, the EU is forcing them to display their capability to adapt to stricter regulations. Subsequently, the laws and fines enforced by the EU demonstrate to other nations that these companies can actually be regulated.
In a recent development, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Apple over its alleged monopoly in the cellphone market. It is yet to be seen which side will win in court. The new case is a microcosm of a broader question: how feasible are regulations against big tech in the U.S. legal system?
While regulation may be effective in a union where none of the major companies reside, how does that change when the major companies are headquartered in the same place as where they are being regulated? Companies such as Apple, Google and Meta — all of which operate out of the U.S. — account for the second, fifth and seventh largest market caps in the world and are integral to the U.S. economy. Internet regulation in the U.S., unlike the EU, affects the internet and the economy, making it a difficult area to regulate with ease. However, this certainly doesn’t mean that the U.S. should ignore successful internet regulations made by the EU.
EU internet regulations aren’t an exact one-to-one blueprint; the U.S. should adapt just because it works. Rather, they are a demonstration that certain regulations can work beyond theory — and that is a powerful thing. When GDPR and the DMA display their success by preventing millions of people from losing their data to companies that sell it for profit, or make the internet more fair to the smaller companies that use it, the U.S. and its officials are shown that a domestic adaptation of these regulations is viable.
It’s difficult to get regulation completely right the first time. But when a union of nations with nearly half a billion people is able to demonstrate that internet regulations work, the U.S. should not ignore it. As the U.S. continues its seemingly endless battle to enact new internet regulations, a look toward the EU may provide the evidence needed to show that many internet regulations are more feasible than they seem.
Thomas Muha is an Opinion Columnist who writes about the legal and economic issues facing technology and the internet. He can reached at tmuha@umich.edu or on X at @TJMooUM