Two weeks ago the EU parliament and Council negotiators agreed new EU rules to limit the market power of big online platforms. The Digital Markets Act will ban certain practices used by large platforms acting as “gatekeepers” and enable the Commission to carry out market investigations and sanction non-compliant behaviour.
Before the Digital Markets Act was agreed I spoke to Amandine Le Pape founder of British tech start-up, Element about it. Amandine talks about her concerns on the EU Digital Markets Act and why she thinks enforcing interoperability between apps through Open APIs. Essentially allowing Big Tech to control the process, which will build weak solutions to keep regulators at bay.
More about the Digital Markets Act:
EU lawmakers agreed that the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms, if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice. As regards interoperability obligation for social networks, co-legislators agreed that such interoperability provisions will be assessed in the future.
Parliament also ensured that combining personal data for targeted advertising will only be allowed with explicit consent to the gatekeeper. They also managed to include a requirement to allow users to freely choose their browser, virtual assistants or search engines.
If a gatekeeper does not comply with the rules, the Commission can impose fines of up to 10% of its total worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year, and 20% in case of repeated infringements. In case of systematic infringements, the Commission may ban them from acquiring other companies for a certain time.
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