For decades, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta advanced with few rules and limits. As his power, wealth and reach grew, a flurry of regulatory activity, legislation and legal cases against him emerged in Europe, the United States, China, India, Canada, South Korea and Australia. Now, that global tipping point for reining in the biggest tech companies has finally tipped.
Companies have been forced to modify the everyday technology they offer, including the devices and features of their social media services, which have been especially noticeable to users in Europe. Companies are also making important changes that are less visible, for example in their business models, trading and data sharing practices.
The degree of change is evident at Apple. While the Silicon Valley company once offered its App Store as a unified marketplace around the world, it now has different rules for App Store developers in South Korea, the European Union and the United States due to new laws and court rulings. . The company abandoned the proprietary design of an iPhone charger due to another EU law, meaning future iPhones will have a charger that will work with non-Apple devices.
The changes mean that people’s technological experiences will increasingly differ depending on where they live. In Europe, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat users under the age of 18 no longer see ads based on their personal data, as a result of a 2022 law called the Digital Services Act. In other parts of the world, young people still see such ads on these platforms.
The tech industry is essentially maturing and becoming more like banking, automobiles and healthcare, with companies adapting their products and services to local laws and regulations, said Greg Taylor, a University of Oxford professor focused on competition in technological markets.
