Brussels, 17/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 16 February, the US President, Barack Obama, accused the EU of being commercially-driven in its vigilance of web giants like Facebook and Google, which are currently undergoing investigation by the European Commission for suspected abuse of their dominant position.
In an interview with Re/Code, Barack Obama said: “In defense of Google and Facebook, sometimes the European response here is more commercially-driven than anything else. (…) We have owned the Internet. Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it in ways that they can't compete. And oftentimes what is portrayed as high-minded positions on issues sometimes is just designed to carve out some of their commercial interests.” Sources at the Commission pointed on Tuesday that the Commission's role is “to ensure that companies which are doing business on our continent play by the same rules. We need to protect our citizens. At the same time, we want to encourage companies - being European or not - to develop, invest and make the most out of a market of 500 million potential customers.” MEP Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE, Spain), who is very active in this domain, told the Financial Times: “President Obama forgets or maybe isn't aware that among the dozens of complainants in the Google antitrust case, there are several US companies.” (Elodie Lamer)