E.U. Commission Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into E-Commerce Sector
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — European officials on Wednesday opened an antitrust investigation into whether large technology companies were impeding competition in online shopping, the latest in a string of inquiries in Europe focused on the web’s biggest players. Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s antitrust chief, said the review would focus on how electronics, clothing, shoes and online content are bought and sold online, and whether e-commerce companies had created artificial barriers that stopped Europeans from buying goods from other parts of the Continent. Although the regulators said the investigation was not targeting specific companies, Amazon, which is based in the United States, is the leading e-commerce company in the region, with sales more than double those of its closest competitor. “European citizens face too many barriers to accessing goods and services online across borders,” Ms. Vestager said in a statement on Wednesday. “Some of these barriers are put in place by companies themselves.” The announcement by the European Commission was part of a series of inquiries and proposals aimed at making more of a single market. The overall goal of the efforts, regulators say, is to make it easier for people across the 28-member European Union to gain access to services like movie streaming, cloud computing and online shopping — as well as to help European companies to operate across the diverse region. There are questions, though, about whether some of the moves are an effort to throttle American tech companies and promote European ones. European policy makers are increasingly taking a harsh view of how American companies have often ended up dominating the way in which Europeans use online services. Officials in Brussels have already brought antitrust charges against Google, while open investigations are looking at the tax practices of the likes of Apple and Amazon. “There’s a level of animosity in Europe against U.S. tech companies,” said Serafino Abate, a director at the Center on Regulation in Europe, a research organization based in Brussels. The antitrust inquiry, proposed by Ms. Vestager in late March, may not lead to formal charges against specific companies. Initial findings are expected to be published next year. Already, though, the inquiry puts a spotlight on how few goods Europeans buy online from other countries. Currently, 85 percent of Europeans buy their online products from sellers based in their own countries, according to European Union statistics. In part, language barriers and the costs of international delivery impede international sales. But regulators say contracts signed between companies may also play a significant role. Sales in Europe’s e-commerce industry are expected to reach $377 billion this year, roughly the same as in the United States, according to the data provider eMarketer. While there are many smaller European online retailers, large American tech companies remain at the center of the Continent’s online economy. Amazon is the clear leader, with 13.6 billion euros, or $15.4 billion, in European sales in 2013, the latest figures available, according to Internet Retailer, a trade magazine that covers e-commerce trends. The Otto Group, a German company that is an umbrella group for several e-commerce brands, was the region’s second-largest online retailer, with €6 billion of sales in 2013. A spokesman for Amazon declined to comment on the antitrust investigation. “We agree with the vision of Europe as a single market,” the company said in a statement. “Amazon has approached Europe as a single market since we launched here more than 15 years ago.” The other proposals announced on Wednesday, which have been months in the making and could require several years to be enacted as legislation, could affect how large American tech companies like Google and Facebook operate in the region. Europe’s policy makers want to give Europeans greater choice online, while helping European businesses gain access to the region’s 503 million consumers more easily. The changes “prepare Europe to reap the benefits of a digital future,” Andrus Ansip, the European commissioner in charge of the digital overhaul, said on Wednesday. “They will give people and companies the online freedoms to profit fully from Europe’s huge internal market.” Details of the proposals will be gradually unveiled over the next 18 months. The European Commission must win approval from national governments and the European Parliament before any rules can go into force. That is expected to lead to tension between European politicians. Leaders in France and Germany are eager for greater regulation of people’s online activities, while others in places like Ireland and Britain have backed efforts to remove restrictions on the Internet. European officials say the overhauls are not aimed at American tech companies, which often hold large market shares in the digital industries that have sprung up in recent years. Yet by trying to change how Europeans gain access to digital and telecom services, policy makers will inevitably have to contend with American tech companies that have used their large domestic market — with few internal restriction in areas like trade compared with Europe — to outmuscle their European competitors, which have struggled to grow beyond their national borders. “The nature of Europe doesn’t lend itself to companies selling internationally,” said David Kohler, an e-commerce analyst at Gartner, the technology research company. “Big brands remain national, not global, players.” European officials, in their broad attempt to revamp how Europeans use digital and telecom services, said on Wednesday that they would also review how so-called online platforms, like Uber, the ride-booking service, and Airbnb, the vacation rental website, use data provided by their users, and whether those companies unfairly promote their own services over those of rivals. The proposals also include new copyright legislation, which is expected to be unveiled by the end of the year, that may force Google and other news aggregation services to pay for online material provided by European newspapers. Several publishers, including Axel Springer of Germany, have been critical of Google’s dominance in driving online traffic to their websites. And in a bid to revamp the region’s telecommunications sector, European regulators said they would look at how online messaging services like WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, are regulated, so that they compete on a level playing field with rival services provided by Europe’s traditional carriers. Other changes, including the way small businesses are taxed online and other overhauls to bolster Europe’s digital economy, are also expected to be announced next year. “I want to see pan-Continental telecoms networks, digital services that cross borders and a wave of innovative European start-ups,” Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said on Wednesday. “I want to see every consumer getting the best deals and every business accessing the widest market — wherever they are in Europe.” |