Review by James Brewer
The power wielded by the multi-trillion-dollar leading lights of the IT world is unsettling, and a new book on regulators’ efforts to hold them to account could hardly be more timely. Big Tech is headline news every day as its dominance comes under intense scrutiny in the major jurisdictions. Less publicised, there is a regular roll call of relatively minor cases in contention, if you can still use the term “minor” for disputes which involve questionable practices said to undermine the privacy and choices of individual users and organisations.
This makes the just-published Competition Law, Regulation, and Digital Platforms: Japan, China, UK, EU, and USA, with its surgical dissection of anti-monopoly policies, of huge value. Without doubt, nation states and the European bloc need to keep their foot on the pedal in tackling anti-trust abuse.
Edited by Ruth Taplin and Kazuhiko Fuchikawa, the book allows a series of experts to take an unsparing look at the varied landscape of competition law which in its present form, it is argued, is hard put to deal with the fast-changing digital topography. The perceived weakness of some constraints has let the tech behemoths – as they straddle the world – operate with unprecedented supremacy often beyond the reach of national sovereignty.
Professor Taplin, director of the Centre for Japanese and East Asian Studies, London, is the author or editor of 28 books on topics from the economy of business innovation to risk including cyber-security, to artificial intelligence and intellectual property. Professor Fuchikawa is an associate professor of competition law at Keio University, Japan. In all, seven specialists lend their appraisals of regulatory developments in key anti-trust areas.
Unfair competition cases against Big Tech monopolies affect millions of customers. The very future of the big players is in play to the extent that there has been pressure to dismantle Google and Meta Platforms: The US Federal Trade Commission among its targets would like to unwind the acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram by Meta, a group which was as of mid-May 2025 valued by the stock market at $1.5 trillion. Alphabet, parent of Google, is valued at $1.86 trillion; Apple at $2.97 trillion.
The implications of unfair competition are monumental, says Prof Taplin. The struggles and conflicts of the 21st century are dwarfed by the ferocity for control of populations by big tech companies and national governments. The political systems of what she calls tech monarchies are authoritarian in nature. “If we add the nascent, unknown power of AI, especially when controlled by authoritarian political forces, democracy’s fragile existence becomes extinguished,” the author warns. If the tone of her commentary is polemical, she advances persuasive grounds for it being so.
The central message emerging from the book is an urgent appeal for competition law globally and specifically in the territories analysed to modernise by learning from recent high-profile cases. The argument is bolstered with case studies of tech giants breaking anti-trust law with impunity. Students in this field, established business ethics advisors, legal advocates, regulators and creators concerned about the erosion of intellectual property rights will draw much insight from this compendium.
One of the main manifestations of unfair competition is self-preferential operation by platforms. In April 2025, the European Commission fined Apple and Meta respectively €500m and €200m over failures to comply with the new Digital Markets Act (DMA). Meta incurred the penalty for requiring that EU users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram. Apple was said to have breached the rules by steering app developers away from different options.
The EU has been outstanding in its efforts to stop the worst anti-monopoly breaches, infringements and practices by tech giants largely thanks to the efforts of competition policy virtuosi Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, both of whom stepped down in 2024. Teresa Ribera, who succeeded Ms Vestager, said that Apple and Meta had fallen short of compliance with the DMA by implementing measures that reinforce the dependence of business users and consumers on their platforms. She insisted: “All companies operating in the EU must follow our laws and respect European values.” The latest fines came after two colossal penalties issued by the EU in 2024: €1.8bn against Apple for abusing its dominant position while distributing music streaming apps, and €797m against Meta for abusive practices benefiting Facebook Marketplace.
Meta said that the 2025 decision effectively amounted to a “multi-billion-dollar tariff” that would also hurt European businesses and economies. The California-based group complained: “The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.”
Another startling (to some but perhaps not to critics of the giants) statistic has just been revealed – that Google and Meta accounted for at least half of the £43bn spent on advertising in the UK in 2024, according to an analysis by Press Gazette, noted for its media news coverage and currently running a campaign under the banner of Stop Google and Facebook destroying journalism. Google and Meta are likely to challenge the accuracy of such figures, but the research does point to overwhelming dominance in the field.
One of the roles of competition law not previously foreseen is that it can be a vehicle for reducing consumer inequality and poverty. The UK is leading such legislation, with Japan not far behind, and the US making important regulatory contributions although the Trump administration will doubtless want to put its distinctive stamp on the sector. There will be much pressure to backslide, as the corporations continue to refine the power of the algorithm, that cunning calculating mechanism in the brave new world of tech. The tech giants’ domination in social media also needs to be regulated by an independent judicial body and regulator, Prof Taplin strongly recommends.
Very little has been written about this topic in relation to Japan, so the book is fortunate to have the voices of the country’s practitioners in the field. Prof Fuchikawa argues that the use of AI and algorithms by digital platforms should not be condemned in and of itself, as it holds the potential to achieve efficiency by offering new products and services. He says that exclusionary practices that cannot be fully regulated under existing competition law have nevertheless become a significant issue.
Kentaro Hirayama, a lawyer who served for a time as an investigator at the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), points to new legislation in Japan that has aspects that differ from that of Europe. The question of whether such new regulations are appropriate for digital platforms in the country should continue to be monitored, considering the competitive landscape in Japan, where large domestic platforms hold a significant position, he urges.
As recently as April 2025, the JFTC issued a cease-and-desist order against Google over preferential treatment, ordering the company to stop requiring Android smartphone manufacturers to preinstall its search and browser apps as part of licensing agreements. The commission’s investigation mirrored similar action in other countries, and it was the first time the JFTC had issued such an order against a US tech giant over antitrust violations.
Shuya Hayashi, professor of law at Nagoya University, is consulted regularly by the Japanese government and practitioners in competition law and telecommunications globally. He writes for the new book in a richly detailed paper with Kun-lin Wu, who is completing his doctorate with Prof Hayashi, on cases including the 2023 controversy over Microsoft’s proposed merger with Activision Blizzard. Concerns were raised in the UK and US over the impact on the cloud gaming market of such a tie-up. Competition authorities around the world have recently targeted cloud services over high market concentration. With multiple regulators having an interest in this sphere, the dilemma of whether to give priority to competition over other values, can be resolved only with communication and co-operation among regulators, the joint paper concludes.
Xiaofei Lu, a lawyer who specialises in the protection of shareholder rights and regulation of corporate groups, writes that in recent years platform regulation in China has been characterised by the rapidity of investigations and disciplinary actions and various means for control, including administrative guidance, prior consultation, interviews and training sessions. These regulations extend beyond mere application of the law, and decisions are made emphasising political, economic and social impacts. As a result, effective control has been achieved in China in a shorter period than in other countries. It is desirable to regulate as loosely as possible, says Dr Lu, while considering the relationship between the state and market, and platform characteristics.
Dr Lu (who moved from China to Japan in 2005) notes that following controversies over TikTok, Chinese platformers are being forced to establish a difficult balance between legal compliance and maintaining user trust to adapt to the unique regulatory environment. Unlike the EU and US, China’s data regulatory approach is state-centric and a unique combination of data protection and authorities’ control over data flow.
All this and more are followed by an examination of the similarities between tech giants and big pharma in the context of competition law and intellectual property, revealing how the tech giants are beginning to target the health sector. Prof Naoko Mariyama of the Undergraduate School of Law, Tokai University, an expert on competition law in the Japanese pharmaceutical sector says that rather than creating new medicines, drug companies are extending the patent life of old products. Excessive patenting can be especially problematic in technology-intensive industries, says Prof Mariyama. Research has revealed that this strategy is endemic to the pharmaceutical industry. Many patents issued by the short-staffed US Patent and Trademark Office are said to be of doubtful validity; and there is misuse of the patents system in Europe. Prof Mariyama contends that competition law should apply to thickets or clusters of patents when there is clear evidence that intellectual property rights have been used at the expense of competition.
Prof Taplin alleges that “the tech giants stifle and crush their competitors to the detriment of other developers of new technology, destroying their intellectual property rights, chances to develop their own small businesses and customer choice to find an alternative, more effective, cheaper option.”
What is the answer? How to clean up operations without throwing the baby out with the bathwater – that is, without sacrificing the safeguards for digital systems that the main operators have achieved, largely successfully? Prof Taplin identifies how tech giants could open their digital platforms for fair use by customers, small and medium enterprises and creators, while still allowing those giants their important role as gatekeepers of digital security. This is not as straightforward as it sounds. “This burning issue…poses a conundrum which is yet to be solved,” comments Prof Taplin.
Competition Law, Regulation, and Digital Platforms: Japan, China, UK, EU, and USA is edited by Ruth Taplin and Kazuhiko Fuchikawa. (Routledge Studies in the Growth Economies of Asia). Available in print and in Kindle edition.
