Italy has quietly become one of Big Tech’s most prolific antagonists

There was a protest against Amazon in Rome, Italy.

Italy's competition regulator slapped a 1.13 billion euro fine on Amazon last month, the latest in a string of moves against Big Tech.

In the last year, the watchdog, Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, has made a number of rulings against the e-commerce giant, Meta, as well as other companies.

The watchdog said that the firm encouraged Italian sellers to use its own logistics service, Fulfilment by Amazon, which it said was an abuse of its dominant position. It is a charge that Amazon denies.

A senior economics lecturer at the U.K.'s Lancaster University told CNBC that the large monetary sanction on this occasion is part of a trend of national regulators acting against Big Tech firms.

He said that the national regulators want to show that they are doing something.

AGCM has been active. Several fines were levied against large U.S. tech companies. It fined Apple and Amazon for alleged anti-competitive cooperation. In February, it fined Facebook 7 million euros for its use of data, and in January, it fined Google 102 million euros for abusing its dominant position in car software.

National regulators will take action in their home markets, but the sanctions vary greatly in their size.

AGCM will not go without challenges. Amazon plans to appeal the fine.

The proposed fine and remedies are excessive, according to a spokesman.

Maria Luisa Stasi, a senior legal officer at Article 19, said that it was not surprising that some national watchdogs, like those in Italy and France, had taken their own initiative to move so forcefully against Big Tech.

Competition authorities in Europe are more likely to conduct sector inquiries or market studies if they think there is an environment where there might be some problems.

She said that the probes are happening in markets with larger populations that have more developed digital audiences.

She said that in a number of the biggest cases that we are seeing in Europe at the moment, they have been supported by consumer associations or individuals that got together. It is a bottom-up push.

She said that there will be issues of budget, resources and capacity with regulators of all shapes facing hurdles with large digital workloads.

In the case of Big Tech's vast and global businesses, it takes a lot of elbow grease to sift through evidence and data.

I can't tell you if the software you put on my desk is an instrument for a Cartel or not because I'm not able to read it. This could slow the process down a lot.

She favors regulators taking interim measures against companies, for example by ordering the halt or restriction of a particular activity during an investigation rather than waiting until the probe concludes, which could take years.

Competition watchdogs have set up specialized units to deal with Big Tech. The Competition and Markets Authority in the U.K. established a dedicated tech unit last year to investigate digital giants. The Facebook Giphy acquisition is the subject of a dispute between the two parties.

The dynamic of competition regulation in Europe is about to undergo a significant change, as the AGCM has acted on their own.

The Digital Markets Act is a sweeping set of new EU regulations that are still in the works. The Council of the EU is where government ministers meet to adopt laws, which is currently being led by France.

The rules for large tech companies that are dominant in the market will be tightened. There will be greater scrutiny of deals.

The European Commission will investigate abuses or misdeeds by these people.

The question of capacity and resources is hanging over the DMA.

The Commission will have almost everything on its desk. Is the Commission able to do that? She said it was a capacity issue.

Competition law, privacy and data protection are some of the fields that other national regulators are taking action in.

The Germans and the French have been very active in the past.

In the first week of January, France's data watchdog fined both Facebook and Google over their use of cookies, while Germany's federal antitrust office is looking into the matter.

He said that many regulators need to work hard for the long haul.

You need to win in court if you find one of those big companies. They can appeal at the European level.