Europe, more precisely the Common European Area, He has been working on the so-called Digital Markets Act for quite some time.commonly referred to as the DMA by its English abbreviation (Digital Markets Act), a set of regulations aimed at promoting competition in the technology sector, more specifically with regard to digital services, and thus preventing the creation of closed markets in certain platforms and/or services.

The companies affected by the application of these new regulations have so far behaved in accordance with the legislation in force, but of course it is necessary to clarify at this point that we are talking about market areas, technologies and services whose expansion is relatively recent, so this market lacked specific regulations in certain areasand that is exactly what the WFD intends to fix. And yes, I’m aware that we’re talking about platforms and services that have been around for years, but when I talk about “new” I’m doing so with respect to the time it takes legislators to do this type of process.

In the context of this future regulation, it is very important that the one with the porter (guardian), which is the one used by the DMA to designate large technology companies whose services meet a number of conditions. In this regard, we could read this in the statement of the European Parliament from March last year:

«[…]market capitalization of at least 75 billion euros or annual turnover. in the amount of 7,500 million. To be labeled as “gatekeepers”, these companies must also provide certain services such as browsers, messaging or social networks that have at least 45 million end users per month in the EU and 10,000 business users per year..”

Thus, the big question that has been hanging in the air until today has been which companies and services will be identified as gatekeepers and therefore forced to take the measures set out in the DMA to facilitate competition. And I say to this day because The European Commission has published the first list of guardians. At this point, yes, it is important to clarify that what has been analyzed is the scope of their different services, so that the same company can (and this time it happens with all but one) see more than one of them. services listed.

The six companies listed in the European Parliament’s communication are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft but as mentioned above and you can see in the image above, the European authority has indicated which products and services this label applies to.

In this list, we can see that according to the type of service, there are those that are most affected by the entry into force of the RSV are mediationsamong which we mainly find sales platforms, but Google Maps also “sneaks in”. followed by social networks, with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok. And when it comes to companies, the one that has undoubtedly received the most attention has been Alphabet, the parent company of Google, with at least eight services/products among those considered guardians.

In addition, we see in the mentioned publication that several appeals have been accepted for study, which the regulator will decide on in the future. More specifically, the European Commission is reviewing Microsoft’s claims regarding Bing, Edge and their advertising platformas well as those of Apple, both in terms of iMessage as ipadOS. The three Microsoft investigations and the iMessage investigation must be closed within a maximum of five months, while the one involving the iPad operating system has a longer period of 12 months.

We also know of some cases where the use of RSV has been ruled out. Specifically, they are Gmail, Outlook.com and Samsung Internet Browserwhich is a standard part of all portable devices of the Korean brand.

And now this?

As you can see in the picture above, hThey started running two accounts, one is for products and services that have been identified as guardians and the other for those for which an investigation has been initiated for a period of five months. Given that the DMA has a six-month period to adapt to the regulations, the DMA will have to make all the necessary changes during the period that starts today and ends in March 2024, while, if designated as gatekeepers, Bing , Edge, Microsoft Ads and /or iMessage, which we will know no later than February 2024, will have to adapt in August of the same year.

And what is the adaptation to DMA for all platforms covered by this standard? Well, we can best sum it up with one word: interoperability or in other words, make them stop being walled gardens, whether it’s sending and receiving messages from other services, allowing the integration of other shops and third-party payment systems, etc. Some time ago we analyzed what this could mean for one of the companies , which will be most affected in terms of its operating system and application distribution model, Apple.

Regarding the reactions, Google published its official opinion signed by the company’s legal director, in which reaffirms its full commitment to align with the WFD in those aspects where some progress is still lacking, the attitude we can assume will be shared by the rest of the technology companies involved in this decision, although we can also expect some reference from Apple to the problems that will be unleashed. for your application.

«More choice for consumers, fewer barriers for smaller competitors: WFD opens the door to the internet. With today’s designation, we are finally reining in the economic power of the six gatekeepers, giving consumers more choice and creating new opportunities for smaller innovative technology companies through, for example, interoperability, data transfer, real-time data portability and fairness. . It is time for Europe to set the rules of the game from the ground up to ensure that digital markets are fair and open.“, Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market.

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