After tough negotiations, the EU institutions agreed on the so-called Digital Markets Act (DMA) on Thursday evening, which was pushed by EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager just over a year ago.
“What we want is simple. Fair markets in the digital world, too,” said Vestager. Consumers are entitled to the advantages of competing digital markets. “Big platforms have to allow more competition,” said German Digital Minister Volker Wissing. This strengthens European innovations.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) aims to impose stricter rules for so-called “gatekeepers” with a particularly strong market position and imposes rules of conduct on them regarding the handling of customer data and access to their platforms. Vestager is keeping an eye on Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook owner Meta and Microsoft.
According to German MEP Andreas Schwab, the DMA agreement also put an end to lengthy cartel processes in which the authorities lagged behind technological developments. “The real test for the EU is not the passage of the DMA, but ensuring its enforceability, effectiveness and fair implementation,” said antitrust expert Michael Dietrich from the law firm Clifford Chance.
In order to get the tech companies to cooperate, high penalties can be imposed for violations. Fines of up to ten percent of the annual turnover are possible. In the case of repeated violations, there is even a threat of up to 20 percent. “Going forward, gatekeepers will need to make significant changes to certain operations in order to meet the requirements of the DMA. It is expected that companies that do not meet the gatekeeper criteria are already developing plans to comply – or even to take action.” said Dietrich.
“The dominance of the large international digital corporations has led to a massive imbalance at the expense of the European economy,” said Europe Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) in a statement. “The DMA creates more fairness and clear, Europe-wide regulations in the digital space.” In order to keep up globally, it is also important that Europe becomes the world leader in terms of innovation in the digital sector. To do this, you have to create the best possible framework conditions in the EU “and finally complete the internal market”. Economics Minister Margerete Schramböck (ÖVP): “The conclusion of the trilogue negotiations ushers in a new era to protect tens of thousands of small companies from the market power of large corporations and to ensure fairer competition.”
Apple again announced that it is concerned about the DMA. It creates unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities and makes it difficult to charge for intellectual property. Google said the rules could reduce innovation and choice for Europeans. Now let’s see what needs to be done to comply with the requirements.
France, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, said in a tweet that the deal was a tentative one. According to insiders, individual points such as the future obligations of the gatekeepers and the amount of annual sales from which the DMA applies to a company were still disputed.
Ultimately, those involved agreed that the new rules would apply to search engines, social networks, online intermediary service providers, online advertisers, cloud providers, video platforms, web browsers and virtual language assistants as well as operating systems. Affected messaging providers such as Metas WhatsApp should therefore make their offers interoperable and give users access to data. Competing products and services should be offered on one platform and deals with customers should also be possible outside of the platform. Groups with a market capitalization of 75 billion euros or more, annual sales of 7.5 billion euros and at least 45 million monthly customers are affected. The agreement reached still needs the approval of the Council and the European Parliament. The regulation will then apply six months after its entry into force.
Source: Nachrichten
