Thursday, October 28, 2021
Agreement on regulatory law
EU countries are tackling online giants
With a new set of rules, the EU wants to force large technology groups to be more open. If it is decided what the member states have agreed on in advance, the market power of Google, Apple, Facebook and others is likely to decrease somewhat in the future.
The EU member states have apparently agreed on a far-reaching law to regulate large online companies. In the responsible working group of the EU Council, the representatives of the 27 countries agreed on a text that was essentially based on the proposals of the EU Commission, reported the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, citing diplomatic circles and internal documents. Accordingly, almost twenty behaviors by Google, Amazon and others are to be banned in the future.
In December, the commission proposed far-reaching legislative changes to reduce the market power of the large Internet companies. Part of this package was a market control act called the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Accordingly, special rules should apply to the largest digital corporations, which are classified as “gatekeepers” because of their turnover and their number of users. This includes around ten corporations, including Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft.
In the past, the Commission has mainly tried to deal with problems related to the market power of these companies through competitive procedures. The proceedings, however, often take a long time and the subsequent penalties are hardly deterring given the enormous profits of the corporations. As the “Frankfurter Allgemeine” now reported, the list of behavior to be prohibited is based heavily on ongoing and completed competition proceedings. Google and Amazon, for example, should be prohibited from preferring their own services in their search results. Strict requirements from Apple and Google for developers of apps for their smartphones could also be banned.
The text drawn up in the Council working group is due to be submitted to the ambassadors and, ultimately, the competent ministers of the Member States for approval in the coming weeks.