A new era of Big Tech regulation?
The EU Parliament voted in favour of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on 25 March. The new legislation stipulates significantly stricter rules for gatekeepers like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple and is meant to strengthen fair competition and give consumers more choice. Commentators discuss how much clout this new instrument will have.
EU puts lobbies in their place
Eco welcomes the initiative as a measure for limiting the power of the major online platforms:
“For consumers this brings huge benefits: greater privacy protection, better access to competitive products, better service and more choice. But it also means a levelling of the digital space that will allow smaller companies to compete with the giants. ... Another wonderful signal this legislation sends is that the EU is finally learning to be immune to the immense lobbying efforts of the digital giants, who have managed to delay and restrict several legislative initiatives but have now failed across the board.”
Further steps must follow
The power struggle isn't over yet, warns Le Monde:
“Because the game is far from won. The General Data Protection Regulation was promising, but it has revealed that Gafam companies are capable of finding loopholes in the framework imposed on them. The challenge with the Digital Market Act now is for the EU to equip itself with sufficiently effective implementation and monitoring tools to address the lack of transparency and cooperation that these companies have consistently displayed.”