United Kingdom

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.

The UK Online Safety Act aims to protect children online but its vague rules and strict enforcement have led to over-censorship, threatening legitimate communities, and Parliament should clarify content definitions, allow remediation periods, and require judicial review to fix these issues.

The idea that nations can invoke “AI sovereignty” to draw on U.S. technology when convenient, while walling off their markets, is not a bargain U.S. policymakers should entertain.

Rather than following the UK’s lead on children’s online safety, U.S. policymakers should learn from their mistakes and chart a better path that skillfully preserves user privacy, limits collateral damage, and removes the incentives for online services to over-remove lawful content.

ITIF does not agree with the Competition and Markets Authority's provisional findings that Apple's mobile platform has Strategic Market Status and that there are high barriers to entry and expansion.

President Trump has rightly emphasized that AI should be allowed to learn like humans do, and unless the UK adopts a commonsense approach to AI training and copyright, it risks falling behind China in the global AI race.