New FCC rules extending supply-chain restrictions to components and online marketplaces mark a more targeted phase of technology regulation, as concerns over market power, surveillance and AI intensify.
The growing reach of large technology groups has long raised concerns well beyond market dominance alone. David Hesmondhalgh, writing in an adapted extract from The Cultural Industries, argues that their rise has been helped by lighter regulation than that faced by media, telecoms and consumer electronics firms, and by the scale of their lobbying power. He also points to business models built on surveillance, data extraction, tax minimisation and rapid global expansion, all of which have made these companies unusually difficult to restrain.
Those concerns are not confined to theory. Regulatory specialists at Covington & Burling say technology, media and telecommunications companies now face an increasingly complex rulebook covering online services, accessibility, interoperability, licensing, enforcement inquiries and artificial intelligence. Steptoe’s internet, telecoms and media practice likewise describes a field shaped by high-stakes proceedings before agencies and courts across the US, Europe and other regions. The broader point is clear: the sector has matured into one that is heavily commercial, politically connected and legally contested, even if the governing framework remains uneven across different markets.
Hesmondhalgh argues that scrutiny has grown since the early 2010s, particularly through competition law. He cites the European Commission’s €2.4 billion fine against Alphabet’s Google in 2017 over self-preferencing in shopping search results. In the US, the Biden administration backed a more interventionist approach through the Federal Communications Commission under Lina Khan, including lawsuits against Amazon and Meta and closer examination of links between large technology firms and AI start-ups. Yet, as he notes, these measures have mainly targeted market power rather than the wider social and democratic effects of concentrated digital platforms.
The regulatory pressure has become more specific in 2026. According to analysis from Legal500, the Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules on 22 July that expand supply-chain restrictions and tighten controls on online marketplaces. The changes prohibit authorisation of products containing logic-bearing hardware from entities on the Covered List and require marketplaces handling FCC-regulated equipment to verify and display FCC identifiers at the point of sale. In practical terms, the rules close a loophole that had allowed component parts from blacklisted suppliers to slip through wider equipment approvals, while extending compliance duties to platforms that sell and fulfil third-party devices.
The debate is now sharpening around artificial intelligence. Hesmondhalgh argues that AI may intensify the environmental costs of networked computing and further entrench the power of the largest firms, especially because modern machine learning depends on vast data sets and heavy processing capacity. He also notes how claims about artificial general intelligence have helped attract investment by promising transformative social benefits that remain difficult to verify. OpenAI, he writes, became emblematic of this narrative, with supporters suggesting it could help with climate change, healthcare and education, even as the social costs of the technology were left uncertain.
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