Big Tech companies have been facing a lot of scrutinies for some time now and demand for regulating such firms is increasing. Now, Britain’s competition watchdog has proposed that there should be tailored rules to regulate tech giants.

The companies affected by this include the likes of Google and Facebook. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that a legally binding code of conduct backed up by penalties could extend to fines of up to 10 percent of turnover.

It also proposed that the enhanced merger rules should be set up in legislation. It also reveals that the code will be enforced by a new Digital Markets Unit that will comprise of lawyers, data scientists, and other experts.

While the new unit will be set up in April, the legislation might not be in place until 2022. It will be part of a wider regulatory framework that will include new rules for harmful online content and data protection.

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Further, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) said that some of the world’s biggest tech companies may have to be more transparent about the services they provide and how they use consumers’ data.

This development from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) comes just a week before the European Union is set to outline its own rules for governing the digital services and markets.

Apart from regulatory changes, big tech companies are also facing antitrust scrutiny around the world. While countries like the USA, China, and India have a few ongoing antitrust investigations against Google or its subsidiaries, the state and federal authorities in the U.S. are expected to file antitrust lawsuits against Facebook in the coming days.

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The UK government has introduced The Telecommunications (Security) Bill which, it claims will boost the security standards of the country’s telecom networks. It is aimed at forcing companies to remove equipment from high-risk vendors.

As a part of this new law, reported by Reuters, telecom companies in Britain could be fined up to 10 percent of the company’s turnover or 100,000 pounds (approximately $133,140) per day if they contravene the ban on using equipment made by suppliers like Huawei.

Commenting on this, Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “This groundbreaking bill will give the UK one of the toughest telecoms security regimes in the world and allow us to take the action necessary to protect our networks.”

In response to this bill, Huawei Vice President Victor Zhang said that the “decision is politically motivated and not based on a fair evaluation of the risks. It does not serve anyone’s best interests as it would move Britain into the digital slow lane and put at risk the Government’s leveling up agenda.”

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The development comes just days after Huawei’s Vice President Victor Zhang had urged UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to reconsider the decision to ban Huawei from the 5G network development and said that it will worsen England’s north-south divide.

For those who are unaware, the United Kingdom banned Huawei, the world’s leading telecom equipment manufacturer, from taking part in the country’s 5G infrastructure development, bowing down to the pressure from the United States.

It has also asked all the telecom companies in the UK to get rid of Huawei’s equipment from their infrastructure by 2027. This is because there are concerns that Huawei’s equipment could be used by China for spying. However, Huawei has denied all such allegations related to its security.

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Huawei Technologies has recently been forced to fix a major flaw in its products by the British Intelligence, which put the security of the country’s networks at risk, as per a government agency.

The UK government found a “Critical, user-facing vulnerabilities” in the system regarding the Chinese telecommunications giant’s fixed-broadband products. The issue was caused by poor code quality and an old operating system, according to Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board. This center was built by the company alongside the government in an arrangement to let the British National Cyber Security Centre examine its hardware and software.

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Since then, an annual report from HCSEC Oversight Board has stated that the security issue has been cleared and as such, no exploitations were detected. However, the fix also created a new and “major issue,” which is said to be caused by the “deficiencies in Huawei’s engineering processes remain.” The report from SCMP mentioned the event had “national significance,” and being a rare occasion where a full description of the problem was temporarily withheld from Huawei as the impact was assessed.

Notably, the discovery of the critical flaw arrived during the time when the British government had decided to ban the Chinese company from supplying the nation with equipment for 5G networking. The government is also currently reviewing its role in supplying fixed-broadband infrastructure. The HCSEC Oversight Board stated that it “can only provide limited technical assurance in the security risk management of Huawei equipment in UK networks.”

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United Kingdom mobile operators plan to warn the British government that a ban on Chinese telecommunications company Huawei would jeopardize the UK’s role as a leader in mobile connectivity. Several operators reportedly plan to send a letter to Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill asking the government to urgently clarify whether it intends to allow Huawei to bid for 5G contracts in Britain, according to the BBC

On top of this, China’s ambassador to London also warned the British government that if Huawei is blocked from developing 5G networks then it will hurt Chinese trade and investment relationship with the United Kingdom. “It will send a very bad message not only to Huawei but also to Chinese businesses,” Ambassador Liu Xiaoming told the BBC. He added blocking Huawei would lead to “bad effects not only on trade but also on investment.”

What’s been done to improve the Huawei situation?

Britain’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Theresa May, met to discuss Huawei in April and a decision was made to block Huawei from all core parts of the 5G network but to give it restricted access to non-core parts.

A final decision by the British cabinet of senior ministers was due to have happened in recent weeks but May’s pledge to step down as prime minister has stalled the process, sources said. She is expected to be out of office by the end of July.

Until then, all we can really do is wait for an ultimatum. The company insists that it poses no security threat to any of its customers. Huawei says suggestions to the contrary are a smokescreen for frustrating China’s attempts to emerge as a leading designer and provider of high tech equipment, rather than assembling the nuts and bolts of technology designed in the US and Europe.

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(Source 1 | Source 2)

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