‘Unstoppable momentum’ to rein in Big Tech: Rod Sims

Australia’s former competition tsar has delivered his first speech since exiting the role, rallying against the tech giants’ market dominance.

Outgoing chair of the ACCC Rod Sims provides a speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Christian Gilles

Regulators are finally coming to grips with reining in Big Tech and there is now unstoppable momentum towards digital regulation, former consumer watchdog chairman Rod Sims has said in his first speech since stepping down as Australian’s competition tsar.

Speaking virtually at the Charles River Associates Conference, Europe’s most prestigious privately run competition summit and attended by European Union competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager and Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, Mr Sims said regulators were now “very aware of the problem” presented by the dominance of Google and Facebook.

“It is now widely recognised that we cannot have so few companies controlling the internet and, increasingly therefore, our economy. Dynamism and innovation, among other things, will suffer, and there will be continuing significant rent extraction,” the former Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chairman said on Thursday.

“There is also now recognition that the enforcement of existing antitrust laws, while necessary, will not be sufficient. The key players are too entrenched for that. Not only does ex post enforcement take too long, it is essentially a game of ‘whack a mole’; you hit the mole and it emerges elsewhere … The large tech companies have so many avenues to pursue to retain their dominance.”

Mr Sims – in his first speech since handing over the reins to new ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, who began last week – said there had been recent new laws to tackle the tech giants in Australia, Germany, Korea and Japan, as well as plans in the UK for a news media bargaining code which, like Australia’s, would see millions of dollars flow through to the ­nation’s media companies from the likes of Facebook and Google.

“The global drive to digital regulation is well under way and now looks unstoppable with agreement around the (Digital Markets Act), which is a huge milestone,” he said.

“The DMA will make a significant difference. We can see, however, that the EC, UK and Asian actual and proposed regulatory approaches are different, but this can be a good thing. We can learn off each other in this complex area.”

The US was a different beast, Mr Sims said, given there were many competing bills currently before congress, as well as the so-called Cicilini Report, which recommended regulatory action.

“Will all this momentum give us the competition we need, or will we simply put some important restrictions on the current players who will remain dominant?” Mr Sims said. “I am an optimist.”

Originally published as ‘Unstoppable momentum’ to rein in Big Tech: Rod Sims