Big Tech under Fire

The EU’s Digital Markets Act is targeting anti-competitive behaviour at tech firms like Facebook or Google. It might become a milestone.

• EU lawmakers have agreed on new rules which they hope will limit the dominance of Big Tech companies. Under the Digital Markets Act, tech giants will be forced to open up their platforms to others.
• The regulation is the biggest regulatory move yet to act against anti-competitive behaviour from mainly US businesses. They have faced criticism that they use their dominance to hurt competition.
• The targets of the law include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, Apple’s App Store, Google Play and many other services belonging to large US based tech companies.
• The new rules would require that technology companies make their messaging services accessible for competitors – thus giving users more choice over which services to use.
• In the US a debate about how to rein in Big Tech has been going on for quite some time. But the Biden administration has not taken any big steps so far. It used individual directives instead.
• Analysts are predicting that Europe with its big and important market will pave the way for other countries to follow – as has been the case with other tech rules in the past.