European Union reaching 'final countdown' to major tech antitrust legislation

European lawmakers are nearing an agreement on the main points of new legislation that would rein in the power of U.S. tech giants like Apple, Amazon, and Google.

The new law, dubbed the Digital Markets Act (DMA), would impose a bevy of new restrictions on tech giants that are enforceable by fees that could rise into the tens of billions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

In a tweet on Thursday, EU commissioner Thierry Breton said that it was "the final countdown for digital regulation."

First proposed in December 2020, the DMA seeks to increase competition by ending self-preferencing by tech giants. That includes limiting how gatekeeper companies — like Apple is as the operator of the App Store — privilege their own products and services in rankings compared to third-party offerings.

Another provision in the legislation, which has yet to be finalized, would force Apple to allow developers access to the iPhone without needing to go through official Apple channels like the App Store.

Negotiations are still ongoing, however, and talks have stalled in the past. Even once an agreement is reached, experts told The Wall Street Journal that there are still questions about how the European Commission will implement the new antitrust rules and enforce them.

In addition to the DMA, the EU is also in talks on another piece of antirust legislation called the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA would require platform holders to remove illegal or harmful content in a prompt manner. If they don't, they also face stiff penalties.

6 Comments

crowley 10431 comments · 15 Years

About 2 years ago

Good stuff, it's taken so long.

rezwits 854 comments · 17 Years

You know what would be SICK, would be, OK:

You can side load, but if you side load, you are in violation of Developer Terms, and are BARRED from using Xcode i.e. Using your or having a Developer Account.
You would have to come up with your "own developer frameworks" since you no longer support "paying" for the Apple Frameworks. Or do work arounds, but they could neuter your App if you use "Apple Frameworks." I would be 100% ok with that.

That would make developers thinks TWICE! Pretty hard!

My only thing is the EU is made up power hungry "European Oligarchs" who usurped power from the "European Royals" by subversion, and now they want to control the mightiest companies in the United States | or on the Internet.

Laters...

danox 3393 comments · 11 Years

rezwits said:

You know what would be SICK, would be, OK:

You can side load, but if you side load, you are in violation of Developer Terms, and are BARRED from using Xcode i.e. Using your or having a Developer Account.
You would have to come up with your "own developer frameworks" since you no longer support "paying" for the Apple Frameworks. Or do work arounds, but they could neuter your App if you use "Apple Frameworks." I would be 100% ok with that.

That would make developers thinks TWICE! Pretty hard!

My only thing is the EU is made up power hungry "European Oligarchs" who usurped power from the "European Royals" by subversion, and now they want to control the mightiest companies in the United States | or on the Internet.

Laters...

The Czar and his Herr cousin Kaiser got the boot for complete utter stupidity on their part……starting or losing wars does that.

corp1 95 comments · 5 Years

They're heading for Venus.

Well at least Microsoft supports it:

We support efforts by the European Union to adopt uniform, forward-looking regulation to ensure that these gatekeepers operate fairly and do not undermine the ability of others to compete. To this end, we believe that the proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA) is an important step forward. It requires large tech platforms, including Microsoft, to do more and work together to make “Tech Fit 4 Europe”.

I'm looking forward to having alternate, third party game stores for the Xbox.