The European Union’s original attitude to Internet regulation was timid. From the 1990s to the mid-2010s, just two significant laws were passed, one on commerce and one on privacy, and their practical impact was scarce. The surveillance scandals of the early 2010s prompted cybersecurity norms and a new privacy regulation, the GDPR, which introduced global scope and hefty fines. Eventually, the GDPR succeeded in forcing the global Internet industry to some degree of change. It thus became the blueprint for a sudden rush of lawmaking. The Digital Markets Act tried to open up walled gardens and restore competition; the Digital Services Act addressed content-related issues. Multiple other laws were approved on identity, data sharing, AI, security, and more. In the end, Europe started to view itself as the champion of the rule of law, trying to ground its Internet services in values and rights. Big tech and the U.S. government pushed back, as shown by the ongoing struggle over EU-US data privacy agreements. However, Europe’s regulatory activism seems likely to continue for the rest of the 2020s.