DMA

DMA: heated trilogue negotiations concluded with partial interoperability gains

by Anna Mazgal
March 29, 2022March 29, 2022

Steam cabinet by Finnish Heritage Agency under CC BY

On Thursday March 24th the trilogue negotiators concluded discussions, dramatic at times, over the Digital Markets Act. The compromise includes some gains on interoperability, a potential changemaker in the online intermediation. What to expect? Where not to hold your breath? We parse out the practical consequences of the trilogue outcome on interoperability.

Winding road to the final compromise

Interoperability has been a point of contention since the European Commission published their first draft in December 2020. The EC drafted it narrowly, obligating gatekeepers to offer interoperability to the so-called ancillary services, like payment or identification services, that wish to operate within closed ecosystems. IMCO Rapporteur MEP Andreas Schwab followed this approach in his draft report.

That didn’t go well with many MEPs who were disappointed with the fact that an opportunity to open up walled gardens of online intermediation had not been exploited. Many amendments and heated debates later, the final EP report provided that interconnection should be also possible between messaging apps and services (the so-called number independent interpersonal communication services) as well as social networks.

Since the Council’s approach was focused on refining the business-to-business side of interoperability, the trilogues didn’t show much promise in securing the extension of the EC’s scope. Somehow, under pressure of time the delegation of MEPs managed to negotiate some gains that keep the spirit if not the letter of the EP mandate.

by Anna Mazgal
December 1, 2021December 2, 2021

Gates And Gate Piers To The Quarry by Peter Broster under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

We have it! Both the Council of the European Union and the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee adopted their versions of the Digital Markets Act. After the upcoming EP Plenary vote we will spend a good part of 2022 following the intransparent and unpredictable negotiations between the two bodies. Let’s take a look at what they are bringing to the negotiating table if it comes to big ideas and, above all, new benefits for users.

How it started, how it’s going

After the European Commission showed its proposals for the Digital Markets Act, there were different views on how to make it better; the EC proposal lacked teeth, especially regarding any mechanisms that could break the grip that GAFAM has on the internet. For us, at Wikimedia, the most desired approach would have been to address the business model and not merely base the gatekeeper qualification on turnover and market capitalisation.

It turned out very quickly, however, that the legislators are not in a mood to overturn the status quo. That was not exactly the key objective for the IMCO Committee Rapporteur, although Shadow Rapporteurs managed to introduce good ideas, as we will see below. Now we are awaiting the Plenary vote, most likely on December 16^th. It remains to be seen whether the IMCO report will be in any way amended. But it doesn’t seem likely that the changes, if any, are substantial and it is unlikely that the file that the need for is so widely understood would be rejected.

by Anna Mazgal
October 6, 2021

Doctors or medical students listening to their heartbeats using a multiple stethoscope by Wellcome Collection under CC BY

Shortly before the summer recess, MEPs at the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee concocted close to 1200 amendments to the Digital Markets Act, a proposal construing the category of a gatekeeper and a set of obligations for internet services that qualify as one. Let’s take a look at what the Shadow Rapporteurs, the most important people in the process, proposed and how Rapporteur Andreas Schwab tackled their proposals to date if it comes to expanding users’ choice and autonomy over their data through the DMA.

Who’s talking?

As customary in committee work, each political group designated a representative to debate the DMA report. With Adreas Schwab (EPP, DE) at the helm, the Shadow Rapporteurs are: Evelyne Gebhardt (S&D, DE); Andrus Ansip (RE, EE); Virginie Joron (ID, FR), Martin Schirdewan (GUE, DE), Marcel Kolaja (Greens, CZ), and Adam Bielan (ECR, PL). Each of them, either individually or with colleagues, filed amendments to the DMA.

Contributions span from reinforcing the autonomy of users, through supporting businesses making use of platforms’ intermediation, to supporting platforms themselves. There is no surprise in the fact that the more left of the political spectrum we look, the more important users’ rights are. Having said that, almost each Rapporteur has an interesting proposal on how to make our life on the platforms easier.

Who is in the scope?

With the exception of ECR’s Adam Bielan, all Shadows want to expand the scope of services that could become gatekeepers. Voice assistants, for which the market is highly concentrated, are on everyone’s list, except Kolaja’s. The Green’s Shadow wants to add connected TV and embedded digital services in vehicles, which include those enabling access to audio-visual content. MEPs Gebhardt and Schirdewan expand on the audio-visual, adding services providing audio and video on demand and streaming services respectively.

by Anna Mazgal
July 1, 2021July 1, 2021

We’ve seen the draft report on the Digital Markets Act from the leading Committee, and we are not impressed. Rapporteur Andreas Schwab imagines the DMA as a tool to take swift action against the biggest players in online markets. But the key issues that could help consumers, about whom the Committee for Internal Market and Consumer Protection should be most concerned, remain unresolved.

The usual suspects

The German Christian-Democrat MEP’s vision of the DMA targets the biggest platforms, by raising quantitative thresholds of how rich and popular one has to be to qualify as a gatekeeper. A quick check of whose annual EEA turnover is €10 billion in the last three financial years or market capitalisation is at least €100 billion in the last financial year, and which services have over 45 million monthly users, reveals that Schwab is targeting the GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook Amazon, Microsoft).

The rumour in town is that platforms such as booking.com don’t want to be bound by the same regulatory measures as the giants that are bigger and wealthier by an order of magnitude, and… that originate from the US. This could be considered beneficial, if one views only the five to be the source of most online evils. Except that it is not entirely future-proof if a new core service emerges and does a lot of damage before they actually reach the high financial thresholds. Not to mention that such an approach further entrenches the online ecosystem in which online intermediation is practically divided among the five companies.

by Anna Mazgal
March 31, 2021May 5, 2021

photo by Sergeant Ian Forsyth RLC/MOD, Open Government License 1.0

Many would agree that the issues plaguing the online ecosystem are too many to fix for one act of law. So the European Commission drafted two legislative proposals: the long expected Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Will the DMA prove to be an adequate instrument in the efforts to improve competition in the digital market? Or is it a missed chance to fix structural problems in access to information and knowledge?

The rogues are rogue because we let them

It was not a secret that a regulatory push in the realm of competition was considered by the European Commission. First, because of the multiple probes into practices by big tech, which have been launched by the EC in recent years. Second, because Margrethe Vestager, the Commissioner for Competition and EU’s Executive Vice-President responsible for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age had said so. Third and finally, because it is enough to look at a handful of internet companies which, rather than competing on the market, create global markets of their own, to see that some sort of intervention could benefit users and businesses alike.

The European Union offers a unique environment, where regulating a market influences all 27 Member States and almost 448 million people. Therefore, even globally operating companies will accept a legislative “offer” imposed across the federated part of the continent, even if it is tough on them.

UPDATE: we submitted feedback to the EC consultations on DMA

Stefan Krause, Germany, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons

Sergey Pesterev / Wikimedia Commons

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Benh LIEU SONG (Flickr), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Markus Trienke, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

JohnDarrochNZ, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Michael S Adler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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