Europeans search with Google, shop on Amazon, store their data with Microsoft and talk to each other on platforms owned in California. The European Union has no companies of that size, and has instead written the world's strictest rules for them: on privacy, on competition, on what platforms must remove and on artificial intelligence. It has fined American firms tens of billions of euros. The present American government regards those rules and fines as an attack on American business and American free speech, and answers them with threats of tariffs.
The wider relationship and each side's full account: Europe and the United States.
Where it stands · September 2026
In September 2026 the European Commission opened scrutiny of Oracle's licensing practices and questioned publishers over Google's artificial intelligence search opt-out. It issued a warning to MMG over its Anglo nickel deal. The Commission published the transparency reports that large technology companies submit under the Digital Services Act. In the United States, antitrust authorities cleared Prysmian's acquisition of Atkore.
What the dispute is about
Whose law governs the platforms. The companies are American, their European users number in the hundreds of millions. Europe holds that whoever serves its market obeys its law. Washington holds that rules written so that they catch almost only American firms are trade barriers.
Speech. Europe requires large platforms to act against illegal content and to assess risks to elections and public debate. The administration and the platforms' owners call that censorship reaching into what Americans may say.
Dependence. American law lets American authorities demand data that American companies hold anywhere. European governments, armies and hospitals run on those companies' servers. How to reduce that without an industry of Europe's own is unresolved.
