The world’s pioneering tech cop is making her exit

As Vestager closes out her era in Brussels, regulating the tech industry has become more mainstream around the world. Thanks to her, Europe is now widely seen as the pioneer of the toughest laws against tech. — AFP

BRUSSELS: Margrethe Vestager, the European Union antitrust enforcer who has been the world’s foremost critic of the tech industry, recently walked through her Brussels office wondering what to do with the stuff she had accumulated during a decade in that role, which ends late this month. At one point, she paused to lift a sculpture of a hand holding up its middle finger.

“What should I do with this?” Vestager, 56, asked. The middle finger, she has said, was a reminder not to let critics get you down.