EU regulators kneecap US tech titans

[Commentary] What must Bill Gates think about Europe's ever-expanding efforts to impede, frustrate, bully and cut down to size America's most powerful technology companies? It is some rough and peculiar justice that all the bureaucratic forces and local protectionism that help put the brakes on Microsoft in the late 1990s might now waylay Microsoft's most aggressive competitors -- Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

Beyond the warning and bad press stage, through the litigation phase, and then on to the protracted adverse rulings and appeals period, you finally reach the point where -- understanding that you can't function internationally if you can't function in Europe -- you start to change your business. American corporate power, particularly technology power, hits a glass ceiling in Europe. Reaching it, you lose influence, prestige, support and that sense of being the certain future that fueled your growth.