The Usual Suspects and Their Golden Tickets
So, who stands to profit from this regulatory shakedown? Well, the usual suspects are, as always, loitering with intent. I’m looking at Microsoft, whose Entra ID system is already the backbone of corporate identity management. It’s not a huge leap for them to pivot that expertise towards mass-market age verification. Then there's Alphabet. Google has spent two decades figuring out who you are, what you like, and roughly how old you are. Packaging that know-how into a service for other flailing tech firms seems like a no-brainer. Even Meta, a primary target of the law, has to spend a fortune to comply, likely by acquiring or partnering with specialists, which moves the market.