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The last few weeks will be remembered as a historic turning point in global efforts to regulate the digital economy. In the past few days alone, we’ve seen the beginning of the third US vs Google antitrust case, as well as an EU ruling against Google and Apple.

Meanwhile, this summer, a federal judge found that Google’s search business held an illegal monopoly, the FTC launched a landmark investigation into digital price discrimination against individuals online, and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo — often considered one of the more business-friendly members of the Biden administration — gave a forceful endorsement of the fight against monopoly power at the Democratic National Convention.

Add to this the French crackdown on Telegram founder Pavel Durov, and Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris in a post repudiating online disinformation, following Trump’s repost of AI deepfakes of her endorsing him. All of it has captured global headlines.

The upshot? While it will still take several years to build up the regulatory structures and legislative solutions needed to truly put digital platforms back in service to average citizens, we can declare a certain narrative victory over the arguments put forward since the 1990s by the largest technology platforms in order to entrench their power.

For example, it has now become quite clear that, no, Big Tech isn’t somehow unique among industries and thus deserving of special rules. And, yes, digital commerce and communication should follow the same guidelines as their bricks and mortar peers.

This philosophical shift began with two federal rulings finding Google an illegal monopoly. The third Google case, which began last Monday, will go further, shedding new light on the plumbing of online advertising. This should show the asymmetry of power that exists between Google and content creators and advertisers, as well as how surveillance capitalism as a whole has created the conditions necessary for companies of all types to algorithmically discriminate against their own customers.

Take the first point. Google’s surveillance capacity over publishers and advertisers allows it to potentially undercut advertising rates of various competitors in order to bolster its own advertising business.

But Google’s surveillance goes beyond just advertisers themselves. As a digital middleman, it can collect information about nearly everything we do online — work, play, access government services, talk to our doctors, our families and our banks, book vacations, buy homes, study for degrees.

That information can then be used by advertisers to give us different prices for different products and services. Ever feel like maybe you were being charged more for hotels, for example, because you are a business traveller used to paying full freight on an expense account? You probably are, and, if so, that’s illegal. 

As the FTC put it in a recent statement launching a deep investigation into algorithmic price discrimination, while the transparent use of freely given information to price products and services is normal, “now data collection has become common across devices, from smart cars to robotic vacuums to the phones in our pockets. Many consumers today are not actively aware that their devices constantly gather data about them, and that data can be used to charge them more money for products and services. An age-old practice of targeted pricing is now giving way to a new frontier of surveillance pricing.”

The new investigation chimes with several Department of Justice cases brought by top US antitrust enforcer Jonathan Kanter, who has brought a record number of cases during his tenure. More important than the breadth is the approach. His department has pulled ahead on issues like algorithmic pricing before private actors were able to build a body of judicial victories in lower courts that would make it hard to do so.

In 2022, Kanter launched what he calls Project Gretzky, named after ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky, because as he puts it, “what made Gretzky great is that he skates not to where the puck is, but to where it’s going.” When you are dealing with large technology platforms that can leverage the network effect to create competitive moats around areas entirely outside their own industries — such as healthcare, groceries, automobiles, or AI — that kind of prescience is crucial. 

It will take years to declare practical victory as fights play out over individual cases in industries from retail to farming, housing to insurance. These battles will dovetail with other policy areas, like the reformation of the global trading system and the adoption of new digital trade rules, or national security issues (digital espionage and chokepoints are a major worry for many governments around the world).

Still, the tipping point is clear. And while Harris has been sympathetic to Silicon Valley, I suspect the regulatory efforts will continue if she wins, in part because of her concern about civil liberties and discrimination. Big Tech’s business model has allowed individuals to be spliced, diced and discriminated against in myriad ways. That’s now starting to change. As we understand through these cases just how problematic the model is, and in how many ways our lives are affected, I suspect that digital rules will finally catch up to reality. 

rana.foroohar@ft.com

Wealthy UK and French taxpayers still want to relocate to Italy despite Rome’s recent decision to double its flat tax on the foreign income of rich expats to €200,000 a year.

With the looming abolition of Britain’s historic “non-dom” tax regime, advisers claim Italy remains a highly attractive alternative.

“People move not just because of tax, but because they might like the Italian Riviera, the Italian Alps, the architecture, culture, people,” said Miles Dean, head of international tax at accountancy firm Andersen, who claimed non-doms were looking to leave the UK “in huge numbers”.

Several consultants in the Eurozone’s third-largest economy say they are receiving a steady stream of inquiries from France, where an unstable political climate has fuelled concerns over higher taxes on the wealthy.

In August, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government unexpectedly doubled Italy’s annual levy on overseas income for new tax residents to €200,000 a year.

The move followed grumbles among Italians about the fairness of a flat tax rate set in 2016 as part of a post-Brexit push to lure wealthy people away from the UK. The scheme is estimated to have attracted 2,730 multimillionaires, including oligarchs, private equity investors and even sportspeople, most of whom have set up residence in Milan.

However, Meloni said her government had “considered it right” to update a tax incentive that had seemed “extremely generous”, as the original €100,000 flat tax had not increased since the scheme’s inception.

“The increase from €100,000 to €200,000 does not make a huge difference for multimillionaires that have large foreign incomes,” said Marco Cerrato, partner at tax firm Maisto e Associati in Milan. “Individuals that we have been advising and that have planned to transfer to Italy after 2025 have not changed their plans.”

Maurizio Fresca, an international tax consultant at Italian law firm Chiomenti, said his clients were not so much concerned about the higher tax but about “the politics” behind Rome’s decision, and what that might suggest about the scheme’s long-term durability.

“When high net worth individuals want to relocate to another country, €100,000 a year is not something that holds them back,” Fresca said. “They want to be reassured that this regime will be in force in the future.”

Fresca said Meloni’s government had increased the tax amount to defuse growing public discontent about generous incentives for wealthy foreigners.

“The Italian government wants to avoid a political discussion about the fairness of the lump sum,” Fresca said, adding that €100,000 was seen as “cheap” after several years of high inflation.

Consultants also said Rome had handled the change deftly.

The new rate will only apply to newcomers establishing tax residency in Italy after the change was approved, while existing participants are grandfathered in at the old rate. No other detail has been altered, which had served to reinforce a sense of the scheme’s stability.

Jacopo Zamboni, executive director for private clients at Henley & Partners, which helps wealthy people obtain investment visas and foreign citizenships, said the tax rise was “not perceived as legal uncertainty”.

“Clients see it as an adaptation of the price to the current circumstances,” he said.

Zamboni said inquiries about Italy from British and French residents were up 10 per cent in August this year compared with August 2023.

The increase in the flat tax is expected to discourage some people without sufficient foreign assets or income from making an Italian move. But Cerrato said that could help to avoid a situation in which the incentive scheme is abolished due to “an excessive influx of wealthy foreigners that impact the housing market”.

The participants pay the flat tax on all overseas income and assets for up to 15 years, while shielding them from tax claims elsewhere through double tax treaties.

Many potential beneficiaries were initially wary, given Italy’s reputation for quick changes of government and rapid shifts in policy. But the incentives have proved surprisingly durable. So far they have survived five governments. 

The abolition of the non-dom regime in the UK, alongside plans by the new Labour government to raise taxes, has led some current UK residents to consider moving elsewhere.

In France, an inconclusive parliamentary election in July had prompted a flood of calls from wealthy French residents to their advisers seeking options to shift their assets, were a leftwing alliance to take power and reintroduce wealth taxes.

A conservative, Michel Barnier, has instead been appointed prime minister since, although uncertainty over whether the government will hold has added to incentives for people to look for alternatives.

Italy is one of several popular destinations, which also include traditional tax havens Monaco and Switzerland, as well as Dubai, Greece, Cyprus and Malta.

Tax is not the only factor that drives people’s decision making, advisers say. “A lot of these things come down to lifestyle, connectivity,” Dean said. “There is no one size fits all.”

Additional reporting by Sarah White in Paris