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Why Europe needs a digital regulator

This article is about how the European Commissioner of Digital Science and Society, called for ‘a central EU-wide body with the power to monitor platforms’ use of data’.

• Shouldn’t we have some recourse if Facebook decides to manipulate an election, or Google disappears a favourite firm from its all-important rankings?
• In the United States, competition regulators have largely shrugged. They claim to be monitoring big firms’ behaviour, but they lack the technical expertise to do so. 
• journalist Peter Maass noted, “The agency can take companies to court, but its overworked lawyers don’t really have the time to go the distance against the bottomless legal staff in Silicon Valley.”
• The new economy demands a new regulatory body, with the ability to continually monitor the law-like power now assumed by major digital platforms to themselves.
• Presently, the focus is on how a behemoth like Google might manipulate search results to strangle would-be competitors before they can reach critical mass.
•  Europe can’t expect its digital talent to take on the Googles, Facebooks, Amazons and Apples without some assurance that law will prevent the behemoths from handing them an offer they can’t refuse: be acquired, pay hefty fees for ads or placement, or risk total obscurity.
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