United Kingdom

Rather than resort to heavy-handed content and price regulation to address nonexistent market failures, the CMA should follow the lead of the United States and rely on a tried-and-true, ex post law enforcement framework to address concerns about anticompetitive behavior associated with anti-steering practices by Apple and Google.

The UK is considering new requirements for nudity-scanning software on children's devices that would further expand its controversial online safety regime. While intended to protect children, the proposal would undermine privacy, anonymity, and free speech, and the UK should instead pursue more targeted, privacy-preserving measures.

ITIF believes that in many important respects the Draft Guidance appears to broadly track the EU’s own revised technology transfer guidance (Revised EU Guidance) on technology pools in a largely unproblematic way but rightly declines to follow the Revised EU Guidance’s discussion of the competitive analysis involving licensing negotiation groups.

Designating Microsoft’s business software under the UK's new regulatory framework contradicts the government's stated goals of driving innovation and economic growth, as over-regulating these tools would deter long-term investment and represent an disproportionate, unnecessary exercise of authority when standard competition laws already suffice.

The UK should resist the urge to regulate in haste. Protecting children online is essential, but protection should mean smarter design, stronger safety tools, and greater parental control, not blanket bans that remove technology from young people and choice from families.

Some proposals would give too much power and discretion to the CMA, create unnecessary costs, potentially chill procompetitive behavior and investment, increase unpredictability in the UK’s merger control regime, and needlessly expand the CMA’s powers to investigate algorithmic behavior in ways that could harm UK consumers.

Amidst this time of increasing technological dynamism and global tensions, and given the special relationship that exists between the United States and the UK, the CMA should reassess how it can implement the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 in a more light-touch way.

The UK’s proposed under-16 social media ban reflects a recurring moral panic about new technologies and would undermine youth connection, parental choice, and online privacy without evidence that blanket bans address the real causes of harms to children.

The UK’s proposed Cyber Security and Resilience Bill presents a much-needed opportunity to kickstart the growth of the UK’s lagging cyber insurance market, which will make businesses more resilient to the increasing frequency and significance of cyberattacks.

The collapse of a UK espionage case against alleged Chinese spies highlights Britain’s refusal to call China a security threat, exposing a dangerous weakness driven by economic dependence.