EU unveils ‘revolutionary’ laws to curb big tech firms’ power
EU unveils ‘revolutionary’ laws to curb big tech firms’ power
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
Not the first time I see it on Lemmy but I’m really glad it’s getting traction. I expect a lot from the DMA
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.
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!
Side loading AND USBC on the iPhone? Almost makes it a good phone
I mean what's left compared to the average android phone?
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)
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!
I think this is a possibility.
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.
What! Does the DMA actually say that? It sounds too good to be true, so I’m disinclined to believe it.
It actually does seem to say that:
Gatekeepers often directly collect personal data of end users for the purpose of providing online advertising services when end users use third-party websites and software applications. Third parties also provide gatekeepers with personal data of their end users in order to make use of certain services provided by the gatekeepers in the context of their core platform services, such as custom audiences. The processing, for the purpose of providing online advertising services, of personal data from third parties using core platform services gives gatekeepers potential advantages in terms of accumulation of data, thereby raising barriers to entry. [...]
To ensure that gatekeepers do not unfairly undermine the contestability of core platform services, gatekeepers should enable end users to freely choose to opt-in to such data processing and sign-in practices by offering a less personalised but equivalent alternative, and without making the use of the core platform service or certain functionalities thereof conditional upon the end user’s consent.
Wow! Does the word "should" in legal terms carry a different meaning to regular terms? Like, I should go to bed early so I can get up early, but I don't have to.
gatekeepers should enable end users to freely choose to opt-in to such data processing
Here in Sweden I know a lot of official government verbiage makes it sound more like suggestions, and in general one uses fairly soft language, so you know things are serious when official paperwork says things like "are to" or "will." I'm just unsure if the same applies in English.
We need that in the US for every company...
My wife bought a new car last year and started getting calls and letters about extended warranties and dealers wanting to buy it the same week. I went to urgent care 2 weeks ago with a sinus infection and started getting healthcare emails while I was waiting in the office!
Holy shit. That’s terrifying.
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?
So much confusion about this... But I understand, it is confusing.
GDPR was about privacy and does apply to banks. Banks can't gather or process personal data without consent: https://americandeposits.com/gdpr-affect-bank/
This new regulation is specifically about Big Tech. It regulates companies that control significant parts of market and block smaller companies from entering it. This has nothing to do with banks.
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. In Meta’s case, this would be 10% of $120bn (£95bn).
6 months from what day?
From yesterday I believe.
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.
Europe would be better for it, right? And a competitor can release a product that does follow regulations
Yeah we already see this with alternatives to security tools like cloudflare and akamai. EU companies don't trust US companies due to NSL laws in the US, so there's alternatives inthre EU.
Hopefully it works out better then the GDPR, which was good in theory, but created a whole set of new issues in practice.
GDPR is fantastic and a big win for the consumer. It was so successful in fact, that it started to spread and other countries created similar laws.
It's good, but that cookie banner is just bad... Though it's not clear to me if it's bad and not following the regulation or bad and following the regulation. It's definitely not following the spirit as so many of those cookie banners are deep messes of hierarchical settings which any sane person would not waste time on...
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!
Sounds too good to be true. Why is the EU so concerned about privacy when most individual countries dont care.
Because they can use the EU to set these standards more broadly?
Why write laws for your country specifically when the governing body a step higher is known to already be working on something very similar?
Individual countries do care. Germany has pretty comprehensive privacy laws already. And it is not only about privacy, it is also about power and regulation.
Dashcams are illegal in Germany (no idea how Teslas are allowed, though), and so is Google Street View! Don't fuck with the German government when it comes to privacy.
Because all those Tech Giants are American or Chinese. EU is lagging behind US on innovation so now they want to make Tech Giants jobs more difficult in hopes that this will create some openings for EU tech firms. They don't really care about you're privacy that much, they just want it make more difficult for Google and Facebook to siphon money out of EU. It's still great for us, don't get me wrong.