In the European Union, on Thursday, March 7 2024, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into effect.
The regulation (Wiki) aims to guarantee a competitive and fair digital sector, allowing innovative digital businesses to grow and ensuring the safety of users online, through:
- clear obligations and prohibitions for large online platforms;
- better services and fairer prices for consumers;
- promoting innovation and a fairer online platform environment for technology start-ups;
- giving business users the ability to offer consumers greater choice;
- banning unfair practices on large online platforms.
It currently applies to 22 services from six major technology companies, which act as so-called “gatekeepers”, that is, they control access to the market for other players. These include five American companies – Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, as well as the Chinese ByteDance.
Under the DMA, these companies are required, among other things, to ensure that their messaging apps interoperate with competitors and allow users to decide which apps to pre-install on their devices. They are not allowed to favor their own services over those of competitors or prevent users from removing pre-installed software or applications.
For non-compliance with the law, companies could face a fine of up to 10 percent of global annual turnover and up to 20 percent for repeated violations.
The Digital Markets Act is part of a package that also includes the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The Digital Services Act (Wiki) aims to create a safer online environment for consumers and companies in the European Union (EU), with a set of rules designed to:
- protect consumers and their fundamental rights more effectively;
- define clear responsibilities for online platforms and social media;
- deal with illegal content and products, hate speech and disinformation;
- achieve greater transparency with better reporting and oversight; and
- encourage innovation, growth and competitiveness in the EU’s internal market.
