A press conference given by Margrethe Vestager is the opposite of a performance by Donald Trump. Unlike the US president, the EU’s competition commissioner is cool, dispassionate and a believer in judicial due process. “This has nothing to do with what I feel, nothing whatsoever,” she insisted on Wednesday as she imposed a €4.3bn fine on Google over its Android mobile operating system.
Under Ms Vestager, the EU has become the most unbending enforcer of antitrust law against powerful US technology companies. It took a further step by fining Google’s parent Alphabet a record sum and insisting that the company undoes licensing deals that reinforce its search engine and Chrome browser on mobile devices. If Google does not comply fully, more is to come.
Although this investigation — one of three the commission has pursued against Google — took three years, Ms Vestager has seized the moment. Many consumers, who are waking up to data abuses by companies such as Facebook, want to see US tech groups held to account. She has done it better than the US Federal Trade Commission, which closed an inquiry into Google and Android in 2013.