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Silicon Valley’s Biggest Foe Is Getting Even Tougher | The New York Times

Margrethe Vestager spent the past five years developing a well-earned reputation as the world’s top tech industry watchdog. From her perch overseeing Europe’s competition rules, she fined Google more than $9 billion for breaking antitrust laws, and forced Apple to pay about $14.5 billion for dodging taxes.

Now she says that work, which made her a hero among tech critics, did not go far enough. The biggest tech companies continue to test the limits of antitrust laws, behave unethically and push back against government intervention, she said.

But she said the public’s growing skepticism about technology has given her an opportunity for a tougher approach.

“In the last five years,” Ms. Vestager said in an extended interview, “some of the darker sides of digital technologies have become visible.”

So Ms. Vestager, a 51-year-old former Danish lawmaker, is doubling down. She has signed on for a rare second five-year term as the head of the European Commission’s antitrust division, and assumed expanded responsibility over digital policy across the 28-nation bloc.

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Source: Silicon Valley’s Biggest Foe Is Getting Even Tougher – The New York Times