Why Europe hates American tech companies

The European Union seems to hate American tech companies. A lot.

Just today, there's been a whole range of stories on this theme:

Europe is getting ready to throw the book at Google, which could end up with a $6 billion fine.

Uber issued complaints against Spain, France, and Germany after legal challenges from those countries.

And the EU is going after Apple's new music business before it has even really started.

American tech companies have been attacked for favourable tax treatment (European governments aren't happy to lose out on any tax revenues, especially with economies that have been in recession or stagnation for the past seven years) and US President Barack Obama says European opposition is a commercial, protectionist issue. But neither of these get to the real heart of the issue.

Europe's perceived hatred toward dominant American tech companies, like Google or Apple, is more cultural than anything.

By nature, Europe has a less positive attitude toward innovation and entrepreneurship than America. Take a look at these graphs from a study by the European Commission:

The EU also has a very noticeably higher degree of uncertainty avoidance than the US. In this way, Europeans are more naturally conservative:

There's more.

In Spain, 65.1% of people who haven't set up their own business agree with the statement "entrepreneurs think only about their own wallet." It's not that high across the whole of Europe, but the US figure for the same question posed to the same group of people is just 26.7%.

Similarly, when asked to agree or disagree with the statement "entrepreneurs exploit other people's work," only 27.9% of people who've never set up a business agree. It's not that low anywhere in the European Union. It's over 40% in France, 50% in the Netherlands and over 70% in parts of southern and eastern Europe.

These are not small differences. It's easy to assume that because both the EU and the United States have European legal systems and relatively capitalist economies, they're more similar than they are. But on these sorts of cultural issues, the divide is clear and pretty huge.

This isn't just clear in issues with US tech companies. In Europe genetically modified food that goes practically unnoticed in the US is regulated so stringently that it's effectively banned. Europe pretty much axed its chief scientific adviser role because the person holding it had advised that GMOs were safe.

Given this, is it any particular surprise that European countries are happier with more significant government intervention?

Europe doesn't hate US tech companies because they're from America, but rather, because of what they stand for. Innovation is both exciting and scary, and countries where people are more risk-averse and less individualistic lean on their governments to limit it.