People sometimes characterize the EU’s tech laws as an assault on U.S. companies, and the accusation is not entirely groundless—American dominance in the field naturally means most of the big-name investigations and enforcement cases target firms from the country, and some EU lawmakers have clearly protectionist motives. However, it can’t be stressed enough that U.S. companies are very adept at using European rules to target their own national rivals.
When Google got hit with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine over its comparison-shopping practices, Microsoft—previously a prime target for EU antitrust enforcers itself—was partly responsible. That $5 billion Google fine relating to Android? The complainants included Expedia, TripAdvisor, Oracle, and Microsoft, again. Yelp has complained about Google. Slack has complained about Microsoft. And now Google is trying to wield EU law against Apple.
As I wrote about a month ago, Google has for a while been trying to shame Apple into breaking down the walls around iMessage through the adoption of the Rich Communications Services standard, so Android and iOS users can send one another messages with all the modern bells and whistles using their phones’ native messaging apps. I also noted that the European Commission is trying to establish whether the EU’s new Digital Markets Act antitrust law should apply to iMessage, which would mean forced interoperability. (The DMA already definitely applies to the App Store, and Apple just acknowledged in its 2023 10-K filing that it may have to reform app distribution on iOS.)
The Financial Times reported today that Google is actively lobbying the Commission to bring iMessage under the DMA’s purview—and it’s doing so together with EU telecoms giants Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Orange, and Telefónica.
“It is paramount that businesses can reach all their customers taking advantage of modern communications services with enriched messaging features,” Google and the telcos reportedly wrote in a joint letter to the Commission. “Through iMessage, business users are only able to send enriched messages to iOS users and must rely on traditional SMS for all the other end users.”
Google and the EU telecoms operators are strange bedfellows, given that they’ve recently been at each other’s throats over so-called “fair share” payments from Big Tech to Big Network—a failed concept, for now—but hey, that’s business.
And while we’re on the subject of Europe, we’ve just published the inaugural Fortune 500 Europe list. As Peter Vanham points out in today’s CEO Daily essay, the top pure tech firm in the list is SAP, all the way down at No. 114. That speaks volumes.
More news below. Oh and by the way, if Epic prevails in its U.S. antitrust lawsuit against Google over allegedly monopolistic practices on Android, then "Project Hug"—Google's internal codename for those efforts—will have to go down as one of the most gloriously cynical euphemisms in tech history.
David Meyer
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