EU Announces “Provisional” Agreement on Digital Markets Act
25 March 2022 - Look for news out of Europe today targeting big tech. Engadget has the European Union saying it has reached a provisional agreement on the Digital Markets Act, described by the piece as “a sweeping antitrust law meant to rein in Apple, Google, Meta and other tech giants.” As to how it’ll do that, we don’t know exactly at this time. Past versions of the legislation have included such provisions as:
Requiring big tech to tell competition regulators of any acquisition plans
Not give their own services place of prominence when displaying them and competing services
“Not use data gathered via their main service to launch a product that will compete with other established businesses”
Letting users pull pre-installed apps and use other software in its place
App Stores run by Google and Apple would have to allow third-party billing options
Apple would have to allow apps to be installed on iOS and iPadOS devices from sources other than Apple’s own App Store
There’s also a provision I hadn’t heard about tied to messaging apps. According to Engadget:
…one of the primary provisions of the DMA is that messaging providers would need to make their services interoperable with other services, “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…”
“Not cool” say Apple and WhatsApp. The piece has an Apple spokesperson saying:
We remain concerned that some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities for our users while others will prohibit us from charging for intellectual property in which we invest a great deal…
Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp, hit Twitter saying:
Haven't seen the details of this yet, but I hope they are extremely thoughtful. Interoperability can have benefits, but if it's not done carefully this could cause a tragic weakening of security and privacy in Europe.
The EU mentioned messaging apps specifically in its “provisional” agreement announcement, so it seems obvious that that’s on the table. Everything else is up in the air. Engadget says it’s not known which provisions made it into the latest agreement. More details are expected today.
