ROUNDUP/EU agreement on digital law: Strict requirements for internet giants

BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) – Tech giants like Facebook and Google (Alphabet C (ex Google)) will have to comply with much stricter rules in the European Union in the future. Negotiators from the EU states and the European Parliament agreed on a law on digital markets (Digital Markets Act, DMA) in Brussels on Thursday, which is intended to limit the market power of the Internet giants and ensure fairer competition. This should give consumers more freedom of choice when it comes to online offers.

“This agreement ushers in a new era of tech regulation worldwide,” said CDU MEP Andreas Schwab, who negotiated the DMA for the European Parliament. “The law on digital markets puts an end to the ever-increasing dominance of big tech companies. Now the digital corporations have to show that they also allow fair competition on the Internet.”

The SPD MP René Repasi said: “The DMA clears up abuses in the digital single market.” He spoke of a game changer in the regulation of digital markets. “Harmful business practices such as personalized advertising or self-preference are put to an end.” Painful sanctions would be made possible – such as the break-up of large companies and a ban on takeovers.

The DMA is part of a large digital package presented by the EU Commission in December 2020. The second part is the Digital Services Act (DSA), which Parliament and EU countries are still negotiating. The DSA deals with social aspects such as hate speech or counterfeit products.

Most recently, at the beginning of the millennium, the EU gave itself comprehensive rules for the Internet. Complaints are constantly being raised today that the Internet is a legal vacuum and that it is difficult to enforce existing rules. So far, competition law from the analog world has not been able to prevent the rapid concentration of users and market power in a few digital groups.

The DMA now targets certain companies that are an important gateway to the end consumer for commercial users. First of all, the US companies Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are likely to be affected. In the future, these so-called gatekeepers will have to observe certain rules and regulations. In the event of violations, they face severe sanctions – up to and including the splitting up of the company.

For their central services, the gatekeepers should be forbidden, among other things, to treat their own products and offers preferentially over those of the competition. Users should be able to delete pre-installed apps more frequently. Consumers should also be able to use a service without having to agree to data bundling across all offers from a gatekeeper./wim/DP/jha