Digital Markets Act aims to allow more competition and let consumers delete preloaded phone apps

Haven’t seen any posts about this and it’s a pretty big thing. From DMA website:

Examples of the “do’s”: gatekeepers will for example have to:

  • allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations;
  • provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper;
  • allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform.

Example of the “don’ts”: gatekeepers will for example no longer:

  • treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper’s platform;
  • prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed software or app if they wish so;
  • track end users outside of the gatekeepers’ core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted.

We’ll see how this plays out but this is first move in a very long time that could open up platform like WhatsApp to 3rd party clients and force Google and Apple to open their mobile OSes to other apps. Maybe we’ll see stock Android without play services? One can dream…

P.S. https://digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu - page about the legislation

  • duxbellorum@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Spoke to some EU lawyers recently at a policy meetup and this is pretty consistent with their prevailing sensibilities: target and dilute power that is being held over consumers.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The package of laws will also pave the way for more competition in some of the areas most guarded by the tech firms, including Apple Wallet and Google Pay.

    The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is the second big package of EU laws to hit tech firms in two months and defines a series of obligations that gatekeepers need to comply with, including not participating in anti-competitive practices.

    The DMA aims to undo the gatekeeper or controlling position that large tech companies have commanded in the last 10 years and gives the European Commission the power to conduct market investigations and design remedies if the firms fall out of line.

    Brussels intends the laws to open the door to more competition, allowing startups to compete with the giants on a level playing field for the first time.

    The tech companies – including Apple, Google and Amazon – have six months to comply with a full list of dos and don’ts under the new laws, after which they could be fined up to 10% of their turnover.

    The laws will initially apply to six companies: Alphabet (which owns Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (the owner of TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and Microsoft.

    The original article contains 575 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • HidingCat@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    I hope it spreads and influences other countries. Despite what people think about EU’s regulations, I do think they care more for their citizens than many governments.

  • library_napper@monyet.cc
    1·
    1 year ago

    Big tech companies will be barred from monetising information about phone users, prohibiting them from using the data they collect from apps on a phone to build up a detailed picture of individual consumer behaviours for advertisers.

    Does anyone know if this also applies to banks that monetize from your purchase and transaction history and sell your profile to advertisers?

    Or do banks have the EU by the balls in a way that tech companies don’t?

  • yesStehen@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    Great! Does that mean that we will be able to message people via WhatsApp without needing to have it installed? (Via some kind of api)

    • Gamey@feddit.rocks
      2·
      1 year ago

      Yes, that’s the goal, there was a great blog post from one of the KDE guys about a meeting people from the Neochat, Matrix and XMPP projects where invited to to explain the benefits of interoperability between chat apps and that part actually made it into the law now!

  • Samsy@lemmy.ml
    22·
    1 year ago

    Just theoretical, maybe one of the gatekeepers do their calc and decide: okay we are out of Europe because our greedy business model doesn’t work without a gate.

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.eeEnglish
    13·
    1 year ago

    Hopefully it works out better then the GDPR, which was good in theory, but created a whole set of new issues in practice.

    • Gamey@feddit.rocks
      4·
      1 year ago

      The GDPR is one of the most important laws the EU ever created and the issues you talk about are probably cookie banners, that’s such a increadably tiny issue in a small part of a huge and hugely important law that this comment is nothing but fucking silly!