Because I’m a rock and roll animal, I was invited to an event in London called Time to Reset: Unlocking Growth & Sovereignty Through Digital Competition. It wasn’t really clear to me why a grubby HTML monkey like me was invited, or what it was really about, but as it was in the Financial Times building and had some pretty heavy-hitters from the UK regulatory scene speaking, I thought it would be good to attend.
After some initial discussion about A.I. (which BY LAW must occur to get journalists and politicians to care), we got to the meat of the event: a new report called Bottleneck Britain: How digital competition could power UK growth and sovereignty from the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The thrust of the laudably concise report was music to my ears: a call for bolder tech regulation by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
We recommend the UK government publishes an updated strategic steer for the CMA. This should clarify that proactive, rapid and bold enforcement is pro-growth. The priority should be reducing barriers to entry for competitors, not maximising inward investment from incumbents.
Our previous Prime Minister, Keir Stamer, was a weak leader and desperate not to alienate big U.S. businesses. His Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, forced out the Chair of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to step down only two years into his five year term, and replaced him with former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr “in a bid to boost growth and support the economy”.
The Grauniad reported
The business department said that Reynolds had “accepted” [Marcus] Bokkerink’s resignation and thanked him for his work… It added that the government would soon begin consulting on “new growth-focused strategic steer to the CMA”.
It is understood that Bokkerink’s departure is meant to send a pro-growth signal to businesses, as Reeves and Reynolds attend Davos to meet global business leaders.
Putting a former Amazon chief in charge of reigning in Big Tech might be the reason for the CMA’s recent timidity. This could explain why the CMA recently accepted Apple and Googles’ “voluntary commitments” not to be beastly to competitors, even though this flaccid outcome was not even mentioned as an option when the two behemoths were given Strategic Market Designation.
But what made this report especially interesting was that the author, Roa Powell, had interviewed CMA staff, including Marcus Bokkerink, the ousted Chair:
We are grateful to officials at the Competition and Markets Authority who engaged with this research. And we would like to thank Marcus Bokkerink, Kip Meek and Mike Walker for sharing reflections on their time working on DMCCA implementation within the CMA.
And by complete coincidence, Mr Bokkerink was at the event and asked a question. He was later chatting convivially with Will Hayter, Executive Director for Digital Markets at the CMA, who said in his keynote speech
The IPPR report recommends a new strategic steer. That is a question for the government, and you will have seen the Secretary of State’s comments in the Times last week, in response. But the government’s broader comment in response to the report was that it ‘continues to back the CMA to use all its tools as robustly as it considers necessary to improve competition and benefit consumers, businesses and the UK economy’. We welcome that support.
I couldn’t help wondering if the presence of ex-members and current CMA bigwigs indicates that the regulator is signalling to our new Prime Minister that it wants to be unmuzzled. I certainly hope so, and that the new administration listens.
Talking of politicians, there was a speech by a Member of Parliament, Chi Onwurah MP. Dame Chi is one of the few MPs who was an engineer before a political career, as opposed to a few years at a policy factory after an Oxbridge degree in PPE. She spoke of her Personal Data (Digital Twin) Bill [PDF] which was to receive its first reading on 9 September, and seeks to regulate surveillance capitalism profiling people (making a “digital twin”).
In the Commons, Dame Chi said
We are told that Governments are too slow and too stupid to shape tech, and that the market knows best—the market will ensure the best, most innovative products and services are delivered to the people who need them and keep them safe in the process. I hope that we can all agree now that neolibertarian complacency has not worked.
The tech giants are hubs of amazing innovation but, as my Committee has heard, they are controlled by a small number of extremely wealthy men without the usual corporate governance or competitive constraints. We need to limit their power with our democratic power to protect our citizens.
It’s a “ten minute Bill“, so it has no chance of becoming law, but it is a way for subjects to be introduced to the legislature and to gauge support. The Bill will receive its second Reading on 13 November 2026. I think it needs some tweaks before that; it currently provides an option for Big Tech to seek “consent” which will probably lead to more “cookie banner”-style Consent Theatre (“Let us profile you, or pay for access”). I’ve written to Dame Chi about this (and to invite her to my For A Better Web podcast).
The whole day was encouraging, and I got to meet lots of movers and shakers, including the splendid Megan Kirkwood and Open Web Advocacy operative “The Hepcat”, AKA James Heppell. And I was given a glass of red wine on the FT roof, loomed over by St Pauls.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Land of Regulatory Suits. The fun never stops!
As you know, I’m a crazy bad-ass rock ‘n’ roll animal, so it won’t surprise you to learn that I was recently reading a blog post Browsers and Earnings Statements by glamorous Competition legal eagle Gene Burrus (who I interviewed for my For A Better Web podcast last May).
Gene spent 15 years at Microsoft, managing antitrust compliance with American and European orders and decrees, so he knows what he’s talking about when he writes
In its 10K in a section entitled “Our Future Opportunity”, Microsoft made the following admission, which, to anyone that has advised a dominant firm on compliance and communication to minimize problems with competition laws, was truly shocking.
“Leveraging Windows to fuel our cloud business, grow our share of the PC market, and drive increased engagement with our services like Microsoft Edge, Bing, Copilot, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Consumer, XBOX Game Pass, and more.”
Not grow Windows, not improve the product, not lower the price, but simply leverage its dominant operating system platform to advantage and grow share for other products. Besides the smoking-gun nature of such a statement in a world where self-preferencing by dominant platforms is effectively being outlawed, it reflects an expressed intent to use its significant market power in Windows, not to make Windows better for its customers, but instead to coerce and cajole its customers into using other more strategic Microsoft products.
To people in IT of a certain age (like me), “10K” sounds like the amount of storage you’d require for a really banging ZX Spectrum or BBC Micro game, or if you’re younger, 1% of the size of a hero image from a dull stock photography site. But actually it’s an annual report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that includes information such as company history, organisational structure, executive compensation, equity, subsidiaries, audited financial statements, and similar excitement.
To those of us not in the world of economics or anti-trust fun, the word “leverage” just seems like one of those Ha Ha Business! buzzwords that simply means “to use” (as in, “let’s leverage the boss’ golf trophy to break up that floater so it will flush”).
But what does the word “leverage” mean in this context? Because I’m thick (but well-connected) I emailed Gene to ask. If he rolled his eyes and tutted, I didn’t see, and he graciously allowed me to quote his reply:
It’s kind of one of those magic words in antitrust law that can reveal the intent behind conduct that could be interpreted more than one way. Courts and regulators tend to be very deferential to unilateral business decisions of monopolists if there is any even plausible argument that they are “pro-competitive” or “competition on the merits”.
This statement (especially because it is in a securities filing) can’t be dismissed as just the rantings of a random employee in an email or presentation. It’s the considered position of the company (If it’s not, they have misled investors). And the “leveraging” language is especially problematic as it essentially admits two key elements of an abuse of dominance claim:
1. That they have something (market power/dominant position) to leverage; and
2. That they intend to unfairly use that position for advantage in adjacent markets.
It’s a very interesting divergence between what they teach in business school and what competition laws might prohibit. There is nothing “pro competitive” about “leveraging” a dominant position for unfair advantage. Even monopolists are allowed to compete vigorously “on the merits” (i.e. price, improving quality, etc). But it can be an abuse of dominance to leverage a dominant position in Europe and elsewhere.
In the US, the law is more deferential… and tends to allow even “leveraging” a monopoly, unless that either protects the existing monopoly or might tend to create a new one… And interestingly, Microsoft’s statement arguably breaches even that generous allowance by saying they will leverage to ”increase share of the PC market.”
A dominant company is generally allowed to say “We have a successful product, and we’re going to use it to sell our other products”. The legal question is whether the means by which the dominant position is leveraged are capable of harming competition, rather than simply whether Microsoft obtains benefits from Windows.
I’ve written before about Microsoft’s dirty tricks in UK. Since then, Mozilla’s Over The Edge 2 report assessed Microsoft’s tactics across four regions: the USA, India, the UK, and EU (Germany), and concluded
Microsoft still does not allow users to download, set as the default, or keep using alternative browsers without harmful interference. The patterns are documented, and they meet established definitions of coercion, deception, and manipulation.
These tactics, even the milder ones within the EU, harm Edge’s competitors (as well as users, whose choice isn’t respected). And, to add insult to injury, Microsoft thumbs its nose at regulators by crowing about it in its annual filing.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently investigating Microsoft’s business software ecosystem, to determine whether whether Microsoft has strategic market status (SMS):
We will examine Microsoft’s provision of a range of business software products used by UK organisations, including productivity software, personal computer and server operating systems, database management systems and security software.
We will consider whether practices such as bundling products, limiting interoperability, or using default settings make it harder for customers to switch providers and reduce competition from rivals.
There’s no doubt that Microsoft Edge is productivity software. In 2023, Lindsay Kubasik, Partner Product Manager, Microsoft Edge, wrote in a blog post titled Microsoft Edge: Your AI-powered browser, innovating for businesses and developers (emphasis added):
In today’s digital-first workplace, the browser has quietly become the new operating system for enterprise productivity. From accessing SaaS platforms and cloud-native applications to enabling real-time collaboration and now AI-assisted workflows, the browser is no longer just a window to the web—it is the primary interface for getting work done.
With our mission to be the best browser for business, we are harnessing the power of AI to help you and your organization to stay on the cutting edge. Microsoft Edge continues to be your copilot for the web—the first to integrate AI-powered search, and the only one with Bing built-in.
Microsoft’s Edge 2023 release documentation similarly presents Edge as integrated productivity software:
The Microsoft Edge sidebar lets users access productivity tools side-by-side with their browsing window. In this release, the sidebar is enhanced to increase productivity and improve user experience.
By January 2026, Microsoft said in Securing the Browser Era – From Cloud to AI: A blog series on protecting the modern workspace (emphasis added):
The browser has quietly become the universal workspace. What started as a simple tool for accessing the internet has transformed into the central hub for enterprise productivity, collaboration, and now—AI-powered workflows. From cloud applications and SaaS platforms to GenAI copilots running inside browser tabs, the browser is where work is increasingly happening.
It seems obvious to me that Microsoft is abusing its dominance on Windows to harm competitor browsers, and is brazen enough to openly admit it in a legal document to the Priests of US Magic Capitalism. Microsoft management are basically pulling a moonie at competition regulators.
It’s time for competition regulators in the UK and the EU to stop it.
Even more rock’n’roll reading
