Foxglove and partners launch manifesto aiming to put Big Tech monopoly in the sights of the next European Commission
This year, a new European Commission – the organisation that dictates the direction of the Europe Union – will be formed.
The EU is one of the global bodies with enough power to break up the tech giants – if they can find the will to use that power.
Europe has already made some moves to rein in Big Tech’s monopoly – but they need to go much further. Breaking this chokehold needs to be a central part of the EU’s work in the next two decades.
The world cannot afford to let behemoths like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and Apple dictate the terms of our media, our economy and our democracies.
That’s why today, along with partners including SOMO, the Open Markets Institute and the Balanced Economy Project, we have launched a manifesto that aims to set a strong anti-monopoly agenda for the next European Commission
You can read the manifesto in full by clicking the button below:
It sets out six policy recommendations to create an “ambitious and joined-up approach to tackling monopoly power” in Europe.
Taken together, these policies would put truly open competition and the promising starts up of the future – not protectionist ‘national’ or ‘European’ champions – at the heart of European economic policy. Not only would this provide a fair playing field for small and large businesses alike to compete on innovation – for the good of all Europeans – but also protect so-called champions from being captured by Big Tech incumbents, as with Mistral’s ‘partnership’ with Microsoft.
The manifesto will be presented to the European parliament in Brussels on Monday, April 15. Our Director Rosa Curling will be speaking at the launch and anyone wishing to attend the launch event, or watch the livestream, can register to attend here.
One last thing – the stranglehold Big Tech monopolies have over our markets, lives and core infrastructure has been supercharged by the speculative boom in ‘generative AI’. And the same tech giants have their hands firmly on the levers of power.
Tools like ChatGPT and Sora are built on material stolen from artists and writers without rights or fair pay. This is nothing less than the strip-mining of the human being.
First they mined us for our data – now they are mining the very fruit of human creativity to boost their bottom line.
It’s also putting our planet under incredible strain. The boom in datacentre construction is straining our power grid and our reservoirs, putting Big Tech in direct competition with ordinary people for even the power and water we need to survive.
That’s why this is so important. For all the updates on the efforts of Foxglove – and our partners – to break up Big Tech, hit the button below: