Exclusive by Mathew Carr

March 9, 2026 — Britain and the European Union might team up to tackle the under-regulated big-tech firms, according to a key British lawmaker.

Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP who chairs the foreign select committee in Westminster, says the UK needs to consider various levers when trying to tame the huge companies that are now valued at trillions of US dollars after exploiting social-media data during the past few decades to sell adds and provide information about people to governments and corporations.

She spoke Friday at the UK Media Freedom Forum in London about how tech bros and nations seeking to undermine the UK’s democracy were seeking to control who sees what news and who gets elected in western democracies.

I approached her after her speech and asked her if tariffs might be one of the levers.

Tariffs are something US President Donald Trump knows about (or does not know about according to the US Supreme Court) and there is a crucial discussion on digital services tariffs coming up in the World Trade Organization over the next few weeks.

As I described to Thornberry, this gives the world a chance to apply some pressure on the seemingly uncontrollable US president, who is fiercely protective of Meta, Alphabet/Google, X and his pet project TikTok (and other American digital-services giants).

“Tariffs might be one of those,” Thornberry said of the potential regulatory levers. “But also taxes is another thing which they (the tech companies) manage to avoid paying. It’s also regulation and that we have to look at …you know in what way can we/are we prepared to regulate and to what extent are we going to do that with our European partners.”

In her speech, Thornberry said Britain “should not allow ourselves to be so vulnerable. We must make sure that we protect ourselves. The problem is, is the way in which algorithms are used. And so you can post something, and, you know, if you post something, it may not be true, it may be true, but I think actually the way to look at it is this:

Why should that post have so many eyeballs on it? Does it get all those eyeballs naturally, or is the algorithm being manipulated by the bots, by the way of the preference of the owner, you know, whatever it is, to promote that post much more than it ought ….in order to make sure that you have maximum impact.

“That needs to be regulated.

“The problem is that it’s the very last thing social media companies want to happen, and that’s the challenge.”

Thornberry wasn’t prepared to debate with me use of the WTO.

The UK already has a digital services tax.

Yet, there are a few things happening in the world that signal this month’s WTO negotiations will prove crucial.

Firstly, Mr Trump and his tech bros want an extension to the WTO moratorium on digital-services tariffs, which has been in place since 1998. They want it desperately.

That organization’s 14th Ministerial Conference (MC14) in Cameroon will decide the fate of the E-commerce Moratorium, which is due to expire at the end of this month — it has prevented countries from taxing “electronic transmissions” (your Netflix stream, your software downloads, and your data).

One positive note for the world ex USA is that for all his shunning of multilateralism, Donald Trump paid America’s overdue WTO fees late last year. https://ft.pressreader.com/article/281642491412207  

A couple of weeks later, I published a story saying the moratorium extension is so important to Mr Trump, withholding its extension might even encourage him to start doing the right thing on climate action:

https://carrzee.org/2025/11/18/how-potential-digital-services-tariffs-can-give-emerging-nations-leverage-at-cop30-this-week/

It’s unclear to me whether the WTO leverage was used at the UN climate meeting late last year.

Last week I caught up with Mark Stephens, a consultant at lawfirm Howard Kennedy LLP. He’s a data and privacy dispute consultant.

Stephens said Mr Trump might hold the world to ransom if the world threatens to let the moratorium lapse. Here’s our conversation, for what it’s worth, edited for clarity and brevity: 

 

Mathew Carr: On the WTO thing, because I think the world has had enough of running scared of Donald Trump, the tide is turning against him, and I don’t understand why we shouldn’t use this point of leverage. He uses points of leverage all the time. We can use the same language that he used to get us to spend more on defense via NATO to push the tech companies into line with this. The moratorium is going to expire (at the end of the month) unless it’s extended, and there’s a lot of big countries who are against extending it, but I think a lot of big countries are against extending it. I think the majority are still for extending it, including the UK. So Why do you think we are to be held to ransom by Donald Trump on this?

Mark Stephens: I think You have to look at the value of the currency you have and all of Europe is suffering from trade problems at the moment. They want more fluidity of trade. They’re seeing China have problems with them because of the sanctions on Uyghur forced labor. You’re seeing the Americans wanting to perpetuate the dominance of their tech and their tech platforms, and we’re seeing the world in electronic terms, move into that bifurcated world, so you’ll have the American sphere, the China sphere. I’d always hoped that there would be a third sphere, which would be European sphere which would either be dominated by the European Union or by Russia. Obviously, one didn’t hope for Russia as the dominant feature, but you have to be practical in reality about it, because they’ve started to dominate, along with China in Africa, and that’s where the balance of power geopolitically lies (CarrZee: in Africa …because it might have the biggest population of continents by the middle of the century). If Europe came together and decided that they wanted to clip the wings of American tech and indeed Chinese tech, they would have to do two things. They’d have to offer an alternative, which they currently aren’t. And they would also have to emerge as a force in the world, and so I do think there is an opportunity. The problem is that consumers want access to tech, whether you’re looking at Chinese or Russian tech or American tech. Whilst there is that triopoly, you’re not going to get a third, a full force emerge in Europe. So you’re essentially asking your trade representative to negotiate something which your public will actually, in the end, disown, and that isn’t popular.

Carr: So what do you mean the public will disown?

Stephens: The public want, as is clear … and public are addicted, because that’s deliberately what the platforms do. They (people) are addicted to social media.

Carr: But with respect. With respect. I mean, it’s so easy to switch social media companies.

Stephens: I don’t think it is.

Carr: You just download a new app. The BBC can be the next Facebook.

Stephens. But it’s not. It theoretically can, I agree with you, but it’s pusillanimous (see below for definition) and political …and it (European leadership) will do what its political masters want. We saw that with the Conservatives and we are seeing it again with Labour (in the UK). They are not looking to reinforce the BBC, or indeed, any other national broadcaster across Europe.

Carr: OK these tech firms are just middleman companies. They’re not … they don’t really add that much value. They provide connections between people, which is what telephones have been doing for hundreds of years (maybe not hundreds but 150). So well, I submit to you that you’re being you’re being …not ambitious enough in thinking what can be.

Stephens: No, there’s no limit to my ambition, but I’m looking at the practical value as I see it …you obviously take a very different view but I don’t think the value in trade terms, in geopolitical terms, is as great as you think it is. And you know, I don’t say you shouldn’t use the leverage I would like the moratorium to continue.

Carr: Why? Why would you like it to continue?

Stephens: Because I see it as a valuable tool.

Carr: Explain that?

Stephens: Well, we want to have a role for the future in trading it away. It will be a bargaining chip at some point. The question is whether you play that chip now or later.

Carr: The chip has been available for play for 28 years or something. Yeah, we’ve not done it.

Stephens: No

Carr: Why is now not the time after all of this bad behavior (listed by speakers) on the panel (at the UK Media Freedom Forum) that you were just on.

Stephens: Well, because I don’t think if it’s played now, I’m not convinced that you will be able to make that stick. It’s a move that is very big bet, and I think the geopolitical risk of doing it at the moment when you have nothing else in your pocket to compete with it, it is going to be a problem. I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong, but actually I think that is the reality at the moment. I think there needs to be, and should have been a long time ago, a European public owned –in the same way as public broadcasters are owned– competitors to all of the US, Russian and Chinese tech, we haven’t done that. We’ve limited ourselves at equipment manufacture with people like Nokia and Ericsson. We haven’t gone to platforms, and as a consequence, we are now still back in the Stone Age, relatively speaking. So in order to continue, we are going to have to tool up. We don’t even have a European large language model.

Carr: I hear what you’re saying. So, so what is the worst case scenario, if the moratorium does not get extended?

Stephens: I think the worst case scenario is that …our controls are essentially eroded over our control of tech.

Carr: No but we will be able to put tariffs on the flow of data, which we haven’t been able to do before, right?

Stephens: Yeah.

Carr: Am I understanding it incorrectly?

Stephens: No, no, you understand it correctly. But you know, if you look at it in isolation, yes, it would be lovely to essentially price our data. It’s a value transfer, and not everybody understands that.

Carr: Exactly.

Stephens: So if we say, right, we’re putting a 25% tax on data or tariff on data, what is the counter measure that will come back at you? It’s not a zero-cross game. So if you’re Trump or you’re the Chinese, what are you going to do in return? Because you’re suddenly having to pay expensively for that data? And that is the question, which I don’t think anyone’s got an answer to. So if you could do it …

Carr: It doesn’t have to be expensively at first.

Stephens: Of course it does just …all right. So let’s say you put a 2% tariff on it. Do you think there will be no consequences for that. I mean, if there are going to be no consequences, let’s do it. But I don’t think there won’t be consequences. I think the American tech bros will be in and using their influence, their money, their connections to A oppose the tax and B, trying to extract a cost for that. So … whether the … real world cost in terms of more tariffs on BMWs and Mercedes and Renault, or whether that’s another form. It’s not a it’s not a zero sum game. And that’s the mistake, I think, is being made (by Mathew Carr). If you could do it without consequence, of course we’d do it. But the question is, what is the counter move that is made in return? And that’s the calculation that I think you have to look at to get the full sum.

Carr: I think that’s very wise. One more, if you just forgive me, you’ve given me so much good time. I mean everyone else. I mean Trump doesn’t worry about what the counter move is going to be. He just, well, he chickens out mostly, right.

Stephens: I think that’s, I think that’s a very jejune narrative. I think … the the answer is that he does respond, and he responds, sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes he doesn’t. He’s a pragmatist. And I think one of the challenges…

Carr: So why aren’t we (Europe) pragmatic about this, using this leverage?

Stephens: Because I think that

A we’re a bit pussillanimous.

Carr: But what does that word mean, just for my readers, I of course, know (I didn’t, really).

Stephens: Weak and feeble and not prepared to be principled. And I think one of the challenges we have is that we have weak leadership and weak governance on these things, but also we’re not prepared to pay the consequences because we are not a homogenously aligned group. If you take the European Union particularly, there’s all sorts of tensions. There are all sorts of other things going on.

Carr: But the consequences would be, we would go to a platform that doesn’t have the tariff right? We would go to a UK-based BBC would suddenly start offering search, would start offering social media, and there would be no tariffs, so it would be completely free, especially to the license holders.

Stephens: This is nirvana. You know, you can’t, and this is the point I said about delay. You can’t do that while there is nothing…No alternative people to move to. You have to first put that in place. Only then can you impact the tariffs and have a defensible position when the counter counter measures come and so unless you’ve played out the moves on this chess board, just looking at the first move isn’t really very helpful.

Carr: Thank you so much.

—–

CarrZee: I agree with Stephens that social media is sticky and people would not switch immediately and quickly away from the US tech platforms. I for instance don’t use Facebook that much any more but would not delete my account because of its value as my personal history. I do spend more time now on Upscrolled, an Australia-based social media platform.

I’m gunna let ChatGPT have the last section here. My prompt on Sunday night indicates that each person in the UK is worth about £400 a year to Meta and Alphabet and other big-tech platforms …so that means …each of us Brits has substantial leverage.

CarrZee: Only when the UK starts charging big tech MORE than £400 each per year per Briton, would the tech bros REALLY have an incentive to retaliate on any tariffs Britain imposes.

So the tariffs could raise £26 billion for the UK taxpayer before there would be any justifiable retaliation.

Note:

See this from ChatGPT — the maths:

A rough, evidence-based estimate can be made by dividing the UK revenue that big tech companies earn from advertising by the UK population (since most of that revenue comes from targeted ads based on user data).

1. Total revenue from UK users

Recent estimates suggest that Alphabet and Meta Platforms alone made about £26 billion per year from UK advertising (roughly £20 bn Google + £6 bn Meta). 

This money is largely generated through targeted advertising based on user behaviour and data.

2. Divide by UK population

UK population ≈ 67 million.

£26\,\text{bn} \div 67\,\text{m people} \approx £388 \text{ per person per year}

So just Google and Meta make roughly:

≈ £350–£400 per UK resident per year

from advertising tied to UK users.

3. If you include other tech firms

Add companies such as:

Amazon (advertising + marketplace data) Apple (app store ecosystem) Microsoft (LinkedIn, ads, cloud ecosystem) TikTok and others

A reasonable broad estimate becomes:

£400–£600 per UK resident per year

(roughly $500–$750).

4. Important nuance

This is not literally “selling your personal data.”

Instead the value comes from:

targeted advertising auctions profiling and behavioural prediction training recommendation algorithms marketplace and app-store fees

Your data improves the ad targeting, which increases the price advertisers pay.

5. A simple way to think about it

For an average UK resident each year:

Google search + YouTube ads → ~£200–£250 Facebook/Instagram ads → ~£80–£100 Other platforms → ~£100–£250

Total: ~£400–£600/year of monetisation per person.

✅ Bottom line:

A typical UK resident is worth roughly £400–£600 per year to big tech platforms, mostly through advertising powered by behavioural data.

If you’d like, I can also show you something interesting: how much a UK user is worth compared with a US user (the gap is surprisingly large).