The EU’s Digital Markets Act comes into force in March 2024. The law promises fair competition on the internet and aims to limit the market power of large corporations. Consumer rights are to be strengthened as a result. We explain the most important changes at a glance.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) was passed by the EU Parliament on July 6, 2022. It officially came into force on November 1, 2022. Among other things, it is intended to ensure fair competition on the internet and limit the market power of large tech companies.
To this end, the DMA designates so-called gatekeepers. These are online platforms that enjoy a competitive advantage or even a monopoly due to their market power. In future, the Digital Markets Act will oblige these companies to comply with certain rules within the EU in order to ensure fairer competition.
Digital Markets Act: More consumer protection?
In September 2023, the European Union appointed the first six gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act. In addition to Facebook parent company Meta and TikTok parent company ByteDance, these include Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent company Alphabet. The EU has given the gatekeepers six months to implement the law – until March 7, 2024.
However, the European Union and the European Commission have not only identified competitive advantages for these companies and their platforms due to their market power, but also repeated anti-competitive practices. One of the EU’s objectives is therefore for the Digital Markets Act to strengthen consumer rights. In the following overview, we therefore explain what is to change at consumer level in future.
1. more opportunities for alternative search engines
One of the EU’s goals is for the Digital Markets Act to help alternative search engines break through the Google monopoly to a certain extent in order to boost competition. For this reason, search engine giant Google Chrome will have to display a selection screen for users to choose an alternative search engine.
The same applies to Apple’s Safari browser – especially on the iPhone. The reason: Google was previously the default search engine in most browsers. The competition therefore hardly stood a chance. The DMA should change this. But there is another problem.
Because of Google’s monopoly position with a market share of over 80 percent, most people are hardly aware of alternatives and would probably not consider them – selection screen or not. That’s why we present five alternative search engines that can not only keep up with Google, but are sometimes even better.
2 WhatsApp must open up to other messengers
Gatekeeper company Meta must open up WhatsApp to other messengers in future. This means that it should be possible to send messages between different messenger services. According to the EU, however, this will only happen if the smaller providers want it to happen.
However, the operators of the messengers Signal and Telegram have already repeatedly stated that they do not want to open up to WhatsApp. The reason: as their own data protection standards are higher than those of the gatekeeper platform, they fear that their own guidelines will be restricted. Whether and to what extent cross-messenger communication will take place in the future is therefore questionable for the time being.
3 Apple must open up to other app stores
From March 2024, the DMA obliges Apple to open up to alternative app stores, which the company also calls app marketplaces. In concrete terms, this means that iPhone users should be able to install other stores in future in order to obtain apps from them.
The company must also allow other payment methods in addition to Apple Pay from now on. The Digital Markets Act requires Apple to show users a selection screen when they open its own Safari browser so that they have the option of choosing a different default browser. The same applies to the selection of a default search engine.
4. more control over apps on own devices
According to the Digital Markets Act, consumers will in future have more control over which apps are on their devices. This means that they should at least be able to uninstall pre-installed apps. This was not always the case before, especially on the iPhone.
5. more transparency in data processing
In future, the DMA will oblige gatekeeper companies to provide clear information on what data is collected and for what purpose. Users must also be given the opportunity to actively consent to or reject the collection of data.
In future, cross-platform data processing will only be possible if users do not request the separation of services. For example, as part of the DMA, Meta must offer the option of stopping the exchange of data between Facebook, Instagram and Co. or being able to create new accounts for the individual services.
