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Context

• The European Union recently passed the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that goes into effect in the first quarter of 2024.

Digital Markets Act (DMA)

About

• Digital Markets Act (DMA), is an EU regulation that aims to make the digital economy fairer and more contestable.

Aim

• The DMA intends to ensure a higher degree of competition in European digital markets.
• It will do so by preventing large companies from abusing their market power and by allowing new players to enter the market.
• The Commission aims to guarantee a fair level of competition ("level playing field") on the highly concentrated digital European markets.

Objective

• The main objective of this regulation is to regulate the behaviour of the Big Tech firms within the European Single Market and beyond.

Target Platforms

• This regulation targets the largest digital platforms operating in the European Union.
• They are also known as "gatekeepers" due to the "durable" market position in some digital sectors.
• Also, they meet certain criteria related to the number of users, their turnovers, or capitalization.
• Twenty-two services across six companies - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft - are named as "gatekeepers" by the EU.

List of Obligations

• Prohibition on combining data collected from two different services belonging to the same company (e.g. Facebook and WhatsApp;
• Protection of platforms' business users (including advertisers and publishers);
• Legal instruments against the self-preferencing methods used by platforms for promoting their own products;
• Articles concerning the pre-installation of some services;
• Regulation related to bundling practices;
• Provisions for ensuring interoperability, portability, and access to data for businesses and end-users of platforms.

In case of non-compliance, there will be enforced sanctions mechanisms, including fines of up to 10% of the worldwide turnover.

Sector Coverage

DMA Covers eight different sectors, which it refers to as Core Platforms Services (CPS):

1. Online search engines (e.g. Google search);
2. Online intermediation services (e.g. Google play store, apple's app store);
3. Social networks (e.g. Facebook);
4. Video sharing platforms (e.g. Youtube);
5. Communication platforms (e.g. Whatsapp, gmail);
6. Advertising services (e.g. Google ads);
7. Operating systems (e.g. Android, ios);
8. Cloud services (e.g. Amazon Web Services).

Read:

https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/digital-markets-acts

https://www.iasgyan.in/daily-current-affairs/digital-services-act

PRACTICE QUESTION Q. How many of the following sectors are covered under the European Union’s Digital Market Act? 1.Video sharing platforms (e.g. Youtube); 2.Communication platforms (e.g. Whatsapp, Gmail); 3.Advertising services (e.g. Google ads); 4.Operating systems (e.g. Android, ios); How many of the above are correct? A) Only 1 B) Only 2 C) All 3 D) All Four Answer: D) All Four

 

https://www.gadgets360.com/apps/news/whatsapp-beta-chat-interoperability-feature-development-eu-digital-market-act-regulation-android-4378804