Now it’s fixed: Stricter rules are coming to large technology groups in the European Union. Negotiators from the EU institutions in Brussels agreed on this late Thursday evening.
The fact that the Council of the EU states and the European Parliament confirm this decision is considered a formality. From 2023, the reins for technology groups will be tightened by law. Consumer advocates spoke yesterday of a milestone for consumers and small businesses.
“What we want is simple. Fair markets also in the digital world,” said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who presented a draft law for the so-called “Digital Markets Act” (DMA) just over a year ago. Like the “Digital Services Act” (DSA), the DMA is aimed at technology groups and the handling of content on the Internet. Vestager compares the corporations to bouncers who, due to their growth in recent years, are often in a position to expand their power and slow down the competition. The Competition Commissioner has her eye on the five largest IT companies, all of which are based in the USA: Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.
In the future, these corporations will no longer be allowed to treat their own products and offers preferentially over those of the competition. Users should also be able to delete pre-installed apps on devices. In addition, companies may only combine data from different sources with the express consent of the user and must allow the use of alternative, cheaper app stores.
Also new is that news services such as WhatsApp are obliged to open up to communication with smaller services. It is likely that new providers will come onto the market who can link their service to WhatsApp.
Observers assume that ten to 15 tech companies will be affected by the strict rules. Either an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros or a market capitalization of at least 75 billion euros applies.
Sensitive penalties threaten
In addition, corporations must operate a so-called central platform service (e.g. search engines such as Google or video services such as YouTube) with at least 45 million active users and 10,000 active commercial users per month. Violations are subject to sanctions of up to ten percent of annual global sales, and according to the EU, even merger bans or break-ups are possible in an emergency.
Source: Nachrichten
