As Trump wields tariffs, should India follow EU playbook on regulating Big Tech?

“I find it remarkable that Europe pushes aggressively everywhere in the world to copy and to imitate, but at the same time when you ask ‘do we have a track record of success?’, no one knows,” Daniel Sokol, a law professor at the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law, said at a panel discussion organised by the Policy Consensus Centre in New Delhi on Wednesday, March 5.

The panel discussion comes just a week after EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi convened the second meeting of the EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in New Delhi. In a joint statement after the meeting, both sides vowed to work together on strategic technologies, digital governance, and digital connectivity.

Wednesday’s event also comes in the backdrop of deliberations on the draft Digital Competition Bill proposed by the Indian government, which takes a cue from the EU’s DMA and aims to introduce ex-ante norms to curb the market dominance of big tech companies.

The panel discussion largely centered on whether DMA-equivalent regulations are the most effective way to promote competition and innovation in India’s digital economy.

Copy-paste or customise?

“We should be critical in our evaluation and valuation and knowledge sharing so that we don’t just look at the things that we can do but also learn what are the pitfalls we can possibly avoid either because it hasn’t worked for them [EU] or because we know it has it isn’t going to work for us [India],” said Nirupama Soundararajan, the co-founder and CEO of the Policy Consensus Centre.

Meanwhile, Avik Sarkar, senior research fellow and visiting faculty at Indian School of Business (ISB), said that factors such as innovation as well as literacy and regional divides differentiate the Indian regulatory ecosystem from the EU.

“Europe is cash-rich so we have to understand that because of their cash-rich nature, they can pay for a lot of the services today […] If tomorrow many of the services like email and social media become paid, Europe can possibly pay, India cannot pay for the services,” Sarkar said.

Less red tape or level-playing field?

Earlier this week at the Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona, Brendan Carr, the new FCC chairman appointed by Trump, criticised the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). He argued that the content moderation law “is incompatible with both our free speech tradition in America and the commitments that these technology companies have made to a diversity of opinions.”

Carr’s remarks fit an emerging pattern, as the Trump administration increasingly challenges EU regulations aimed at curbing Big Tech. “Anything that is basically akin to attacks on US technology is open for retaliatory measures. This is a real danger for India,” Professor Sokol of the USC Gould School of Law said.

Sokol also pointed to his own study which found that DMA-equivalent regulations to increase competition in China had a chilling effect on investment and entry.

On the other hand, Rahul Rai, partner and co-founder of Axiom5 Law Chambers, raised concerns over the high price that smaller companies need to pay when they need to access gateway services (such as app stores) created by tech giants.

He made the case that competition regulation aimed at Big Tech could have a positive effect on venture capital (VC) funding for start-ups.

“The constant refrain that I heard from the government folks and stakeholders who were consulted [for the draft Digital Competition Bill], is that VCs who are funding not the highway creators but those entities who will end up driving on the highways and pay the high toll, there is an immediate money math which is that if that toll decreases then there is a greater value for the money that VCs spent on these smaller app developers or smaller tech companies in India,” Rai said.

Regulating cryptocurrency

Digital assets such as cryptocurrency transcend borders. Hence, countries would likely need to become aligned in their regulatory frameworks. In the past, India has batted for a global framework to regulate crypto assets.

India has a complex relationship with cryptocurrency. The central government is in support of blockchain and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) such as the RBI-issued e-rupee even as mainstream tokens such as Bitcoin face regulatory uncertainty.

Sana Khan, a principal associate at law firm Induslaw, flagged the disparity in the approaches taken by India and the EU to regulate crypto assets.

“There are distinct definitions for crypto assets in the EU crypto framework which help in identification and eliminate ambiguity. In India, the definition of virtual digital assets (VDAs) is extremely wide, encompassing any asset that has been generated through cryptographic means having any inherent value, and this can qualify you as a VDA service provider. This is irrespective of the purpose of such an asset or possibility of any value appreciation of it. Once that happens, FIU [Financial Intelligence Unit] registration is triggered along with other accompanying obligations,” Khan said.

“It does not seem to be well balanced, because there are several businesses which in their models contemplate representing assets by way of tokens or codes for different reasons, all of which tend to come within the purview of the framework, thereby being regulated,” she further said, adding that India can take  some inspiration from the EU in regulating crypto assets and more particularly, defining it categorically.

In addition, Sarkar advocated for crypto policies informed by a depth of research that takes into account the views of Indians from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities as “they will do the actual crypto trading.”

The central government is rethinking its tough regulatory stance on cryptocurrency due to shifting attitudes towards the virtual asset in countries like the US, according to a report by Reuters.