Technology

EU’s crackdown on Apple, Meta and others is to avoid forced breakups, top official says

Published

2 years ago

September 7, 2023

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European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton spoke to CNBC about the latest regulation on Big Tech.

Thierry Monasse | Getty Images News | Getty Images

BRUSSELS — U.S. tech giants are facing stricter rules in Europe with more regulation announced this week, but one senior European Union official told CNBC the aim is to avoid forced breakups of large businesses.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, named six “gatekeepers” on Wednesday — these are companies that have an annual turnover above 7.5 billion euros ($8 billion) or 45 million monthly active users inside the bloc. They are Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Meta and ByteDance, who now have six months to comply with stricter market rules — such as not being able to prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed software or apps, or treating their own services more favorably.

“If these companies do not comply, and I hope that they will all comply, then we will have the ability to have [a] fine [of] up to 10% of the global revenue,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for the Internal Market, told CNBC Wednesday.

The fine could be increased to 20% if the company in question continues to not comply with the rules.

“And if they continue, yes, we have tools, including to break up these companies, but I will never want to use it. And I can tell you the discussion that we have with all these companies are professional and I believe are going in the right decision,” Breton said.

Microsoft and Apple challenged the commission’s view that their services, Bing and iMessage, have to follow the new rules, known collectively as the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The commission started an investigation looking at these companies’ arguments and will decide within five months whether they are valid.

The European Union has stepped up its oversight of Big Tech players in recent years, and has been often criticized for being anti-American given that most of these companies are U.S.-based.

“I enjoy to be able to offer to successful companies, European or non-European, to have the ability to enter into our digital market, which is, by the way, bigger than the one in the United States. So it’s very attractive, we are happy that big non-European compan[ies] could benefit from it,” Breton said, who spoke exclusively with CNBC.

EU industry chief says it is ‘extremely important’ tech giants comply with new package of laws

On top of the Digital Markets Act, the EU also introduced the Digital Services Act, which is focused on making platforms legally accountable for the content they carry. Failure to comply with the latter could also lead to hefty fines and temporary bans in the European market.

Some of the largest tech firms have undergone stress tests in the run-up to the implementation of the new law. For example, the stress test of the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, revealed that work still needs to be done to tackle illegal content and disinformation.

Amazon Marketplace, Apple AppStore, Instagram, TikTok and GoogleSearch are among the 19 platforms that fall under the tougher rules. More companies could be added to this list, including the likes of Netflix, PornHub and Airbnb.

Technology

China suspends some critical mineral export curbs to the U.S. as trade truce takes hold

Published

5 hours ago

November 10, 2025

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China suspends some critical mineral export curbs to the U.S. as trade truce takes hold

Crystals of gallium are seen in a laboratory at Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Saxony, Germany on 13 September 2023.

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China has rolled back a number of restrictions on its export of critical minerals and rare earth materials to the United States, in a sign that a trade truce between the world’s two largest economies is holding.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said Friday that it would suspend some export controls on critical minerals used in military hardware, semiconductors and other high-tech industries for a year.

The suspended restrictions, first imposed on Oct. 9, include limits on the export of certain rare earth elements, lithium battery materials, and processing technologies.

The export relaxations follow talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30.

Beijing also reversed retaliatory curbs on exports of gallium, germanium, antimony and other so-called super-hard materials such as synthetic diamonds and boron nitrides. Those measures, introduced in December 2024, were widely seen as retaliation for Washington’s expanded semiconductor export restrictions on China.

China classifies such materials as “dual-use items,” meaning they can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

Beyond military applications, these critical minerals are used across the semiconductor industry and other high-tech sectors — sectors at the heart of U.S.-China trade tensions.

Beijing has also suspended the stricter end-user and end-use verification checks for exports of dual-use graphite to the U.S., which were imposed in December 2024 alongside the broader export ban.

China dominates global production of most critical minerals and rare earth elements and has increasingly used its export policies as leverage in trade disputes.

As part of the latest China-U.S. trade deal, the U.S. has agreed to several concessions, including lowering tariffs on Chinese imports by 10 percentage points, and suspending Trump’s heightened “reciprocal tariffs” on Chinese imports until Nov. 10, 2026.

The U.S. will also postpone a rule announced Sept. 29 that would have blacklisted majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on its entity list.

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: Too early to fret about tech pullback?

Published

8 hours ago

November 10, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: Too early to fret about tech pullback?

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on November 07, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

November is historically the best month for the S&P 500, which gains an average of 1.8% during the period, according to the Stock Trader’s Almanac.

But the first full trading week of the month saw stocks caught in November rains.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average each lost more than 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite shed around 3% — that’s its largest weekly loss since the tech-heavy index slumped 10% in the week ended April 4.

A few months ago, tariffs were the shadows that stalked stocks. Now, it’s fears that artificial intelligence-related stocks are trading at prices disconnected from what the firms are actually worth.

“You’ve got trillions of dollars tied up in seven stocks, for example. So, it’s inevitable, with that kind of concentration, that there will be a worry about, ‘You know, when will this bubble burst?‘” CEO of DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, Tan Su Shan told CNBC.

Goldman Sachs’ CEO David Solomon also thinks choppy waters might be ahead.

“It’s likely there’ll be a 10 to 20% drawdown in equity markets sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,” Solomon said Tuesday at the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in Hong Kong.

That said, a pullback isn’t necessarily bad for stocks. It could even present “buying opportunities” for investors, according to Glen Smith, chief investment officer at GDS Wealth Management.

After all, earnings have been “reassuring” despite worries about tech stocks’ high valuations, Kiran Ganesh, multi-asset strategist at UBS, told CNBC. That means the rain might not last and the rally could find a way to run a little longer.

— CNBC’s Lee Ying Shan, Hugh Leask and Lim Hui Jie contributed to this report.

What you need to know today

Major U.S. index were mixed Friday stateside. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up more than 0.1%, but the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.21% lower. The pan-European Stoxx 600 lost 0.55%. U.S. futures rose Sunday evening stateside.

China consumer prices pick up in October. The consumer price index, released Sunday, showed a 0.2% growth year on year. It beats analysts’ expectations of zero growth and is the first month since June that prices rose.

U.S. government on track to end shutdown. Enough Democratic senators had agreed to vote for a deal that would fund the U.S. government through the end of January, a person familiar with the deal told CNBC.

Another missed jobs report. The ongoing U.S. government shutdown — which is now the longest ever — means the Bureau of Labor Statistics couldn’t release its monthly employment data. Here’s what economists would have expected the report to show.

[PRO] Stocks that could bounce after sell-off. Using CNBC Pro’s stock screener tool, we found several names that are oversold, according to their 14-day relative strength index. This implies they could be due for a recovery in prices.

And finally…

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A global wealth boom is fueling a rise in family office imposters

Fundraisers and fraudsters are presenting themselves as family office representatives, seeking to dupe gullible investors — and then there are also imposters who are in it just for an “ego boost,” several industry veterans told CNBC.

An information vacuum seems to have encouraged imposters. In many markets, genuine single family offices, or SFOs, are exempt from registering so long as they manage only family money. That privacy norm often makes verification hard, said industry experts.

— Lee Ying Shan