Here is the EU crackdown on Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok with the DMA
The European Commission has labeled six digital platforms – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance – as gatekeepers, so they will be subject to stringent rules within the Digital Markets Act (DMA)
It's D-Day for the DMA!
Thus the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, announced via post on the social network ) warning that they will now “have to play by our rules – European rules”.
The Digital Markets Act is the new European regulation that aims to promote greater competition in the technology sector in Europe. The DMA follows the Digital Services Act (DSA), the law on digital services, which came into force on August 25 and aims to curb online hatred, child sexual abuse and misinformation with the first ever laws regulating online content.
Yesterday the European Commission designated, for the first time, the IT companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta and Microsoft as "gatekeepers", pursuant to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). According to the DMA, the statement reads, “the European Commission can designate digital platforms as 'gatekeepers' if they provide an important gateway between businesses and consumers, in relation to the basic services of the platform”.
The DMA aims to nullify the gatekeeper or control position that large technology companies have exercised over the last 10 years and gives the European Executive the power to conduct market investigations and design remedies if companies do not respect the rules.
All the details.
WHAT CHANGES FOR BIG TECH DEFINITE GATEKEEPER
The first list of “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, includes six of the world's largest technology companies: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and US-based Meta, along with China's ByteDance, which owns TikTok.
In total, 22 essential platform services provided by the six companies have been designated, which will now have six months to ensure full compliance with the obligations under the DMA for each of the designated main services.
At the same time, the EU executive has launched four market investigations to further evaluate comments from Microsoft and Apple, which argue that some of their core platform services do not qualify as “gateways”. For Microsoft, we are talking about the Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising services, while for Apple we are talking about iMessage.
As revealed earlier this week by the Financial Times , the two US technology giants are protesting to Brussels to keep iMessage, Apple's messaging app, and Bing, Microsoft's search engine, out of the DMA's regulation.
The Commission has also launched a market investigation to further evaluate whether Apple's iPadOS should be designated as a gatekeeper, even if it does not meet the thresholds.
These investigations aim to ascertain whether the rebuttals presented by the companies demonstrate that the services in question should not be designated as “gateways” under the DMA.
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE DIGITAL MARKETS ACT (DMA)
According to the regulation, digital platforms that have an annual turnover exceeding 7.5 billion euros, a market value exceeding 75 billion euros and 45 million active monthly users in the EU will be considered gatekeepers. Based on these criteria, Samsung successfully argued that its smartphone web browser, Samsung Internet, should not be subject to the new rules, the European Commission said.
According to the provisions of the DMA, platforms will not be allowed to give priority to their own services over those of their competitors. Furthermore, they will be prohibited from combining personal data from different services or using data collected by third-party merchants to engage in competitive practices against them. Not only that, companies will be forced to allow their customers to download apps from rival platforms.
For example, Google and Apple's mobile operating systems – which are the leading mobile operating system platforms worldwide – charge a 30% fee for in-app purchases, which companies like Spotify and Epic Games have said is too much high.
THE CONSEQUENCES
Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Meta and ByteDance will have six months to adapt the main services of their platform to the obligations established in the EU DMA.
Furthermore, as the FT recalls, by March next year, these companies will also have to publish a compliance report to show how they are complying with the law. Those found to be operating in breach of the new legislation risk fines of up to 10% of their global turnover, which may increase to 20% in the event of a repeat offense. In case of systematic violations, the Commission is also empowered to adopt additional remedies, such as requiring a gatekeeper to sell a business or parts of it or prohibiting the gatekeeper from acquiring other services related to systemic non-compliance.
As Politico summarizes, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will force big tech companies to make it easier and cheaper for companies to compete on their platforms starting in March or else face serious fines.
However, big tech companies are still allowed to appeal, but the Commission is already ready to face the legal challenges.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ecco-la-stretta-ue-su-amazon-apple-google-meta-microsoft-e-tiktok-con-il-dma/ on Fri, 08 Sep 2023 05:32:20 +0000.