Big Tech law proposals slowed in Europe by parliamentary squabbles
Attempts by the European Union to curtail the activities of Big Tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook are progressing at a slow pace, with lawmaker infighting potentially weakening and delaying proposals.
The European Commission introduced two pieces of legislation in December 2020, taking aim at Apple and other Big Tech firms operating in the European Union. While the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act offered ways to increase competition and reduce the power of the tech giants, progress on bringing the acts into law are being hampered by fighting between politicians.
The disputes over the rule changes could be sufficient enough to delay their implementation by years, reports the Financial Times, potentially until after current EU competition and digital policy head Margrethe Vestager exits her post in three years time.
"It sounded like we had agreed but that is not the case at all," said German MEP Evelyne Gebhardt in a September debate. "We are a long way from having a common position on this."
The main dispute is over determining what companies should be affected by the legislation. While some, including lead European People's Party Group MEP Andreas Schwab, want to focus on the biggest platforms, others want to widen the scope to affect more digital services.
"If the threshold is too low, it would also capture a number of traditional companies," warned Schwab. "But this law is not for the general economy but it is specifically to target digital gatekeepers that are shutting down markets."
Schwab wants to go after firms with market values in excess of 80 billion euro ($92.6 billion), and to take aim at only core digital services of each company. Meanwhile Socialists & Democrats, the second-biggest group in the European parliament, want to cover video streaming services, music streaming, cloud services, and mobile payment platforms, by using a 50 billion euro ($57.9 billion) marker.
"I fear new gatekeepers will rise instantly once you have dealt with Google and the rest," said Dutch MEP Paul Tang. "We need the legislation to be futureproof. We have waited more than 20 years to reform the rules of the internet, and so we will need to make it strong enough for the upcoming 20 years."
Tang added that the legislation should also affect firms that offer multiple services "otherwise Big Tech will know how to bypass the laws with their army of expensive lawyers and this will be a missed opportunity."
There is a hope that there will be a resolution before EU states, the parliament, and the European Commission gather early in 2022, as well as ahead of France's presidential elections in April. France is the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU for 2022.
Europe isn't the only region enduring slow progress on the path to regulate Big Tech companies. In the United States, despite the leaking of internal Facebook documents and increased scrutiny by lawmakers, it is thought that a regulatory battle similar to that against Big Tobacco could take years before law changes make a real difference.
Read on AppleInsider
The European Commission introduced two pieces of legislation in December 2020, taking aim at Apple and other Big Tech firms operating in the European Union. While the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act offered ways to increase competition and reduce the power of the tech giants, progress on bringing the acts into law are being hampered by fighting between politicians.
The disputes over the rule changes could be sufficient enough to delay their implementation by years, reports the Financial Times, potentially until after current EU competition and digital policy head Margrethe Vestager exits her post in three years time.
"It sounded like we had agreed but that is not the case at all," said German MEP Evelyne Gebhardt in a September debate. "We are a long way from having a common position on this."
The main dispute is over determining what companies should be affected by the legislation. While some, including lead European People's Party Group MEP Andreas Schwab, want to focus on the biggest platforms, others want to widen the scope to affect more digital services.
"If the threshold is too low, it would also capture a number of traditional companies," warned Schwab. "But this law is not for the general economy but it is specifically to target digital gatekeepers that are shutting down markets."
Schwab wants to go after firms with market values in excess of 80 billion euro ($92.6 billion), and to take aim at only core digital services of each company. Meanwhile Socialists & Democrats, the second-biggest group in the European parliament, want to cover video streaming services, music streaming, cloud services, and mobile payment platforms, by using a 50 billion euro ($57.9 billion) marker.
"I fear new gatekeepers will rise instantly once you have dealt with Google and the rest," said Dutch MEP Paul Tang. "We need the legislation to be futureproof. We have waited more than 20 years to reform the rules of the internet, and so we will need to make it strong enough for the upcoming 20 years."
Tang added that the legislation should also affect firms that offer multiple services "otherwise Big Tech will know how to bypass the laws with their army of expensive lawyers and this will be a missed opportunity."
There is a hope that there will be a resolution before EU states, the parliament, and the European Commission gather early in 2022, as well as ahead of France's presidential elections in April. France is the holder of the rotating presidency of the EU for 2022.
Europe isn't the only region enduring slow progress on the path to regulate Big Tech companies. In the United States, despite the leaking of internal Facebook documents and increased scrutiny by lawmakers, it is thought that a regulatory battle similar to that against Big Tobacco could take years before law changes make a real difference.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Catch 22 - The requirement to tax the very successful companies but at the same time encourage them to stay local.
Government spending inevitably only goes up due to the people (us) demanding more (we all believe something should be done about …… fill in whatever bugs you).
We will eventually cross the barrier - more being sucked out of the economy than goes in.
The US has traditionally swung between raising domestic taxes and encouraging trade (lowering import duty) to lowering domestic taxes and taxing those pesky importers (or more correctly the consumers of the imports).
Neither solution solves the problem - governments have to spend less overall - but who will vote for that.
Here endeth the lesson
The reasons they are being targeted should be clear to anyone.
When people say they are using those "mainstream popular services" (Facebook-owned apps usually), the main argument to continue using the service is that "everyone is using this service – so I can't be the one person switching". But, here's the thing: how far does that chain of dependency reach? From one perspective, I would theorize that as few as 500 people could change the Big Tech landscape by jumping to a new platform, bringing with them 100 million people in a domino effect (it wouldn't happen over night – except in extreme cases, like Telegram getting 70 million new customers over the course of 1 day).
Has anyone thought about this .. how many people it would take to shake it all up? 50? 500? 25 000 .. a million people?
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."
—Ronald Reagan
Yeah, yeah, it's a rapidly evolving field, blah, blah, blah. You're not solving the technical issues, you're solving the people issues - and people don't change that much. Build something with as few loopholes as you can manage, rather than something you can use to blame someone else down the track.
The term "gatekeeper" as defined by the EU under the DMA, will NEVER include the largest pharmaceutical company in the World, Roche of Sweden. Or the largest auto maker in the World, Volkswagen of Germany. Or the largest airliner manufacturer in the World, Airbus of France. Or the largest food and beverage company in the World, Nestle of Switzerland. Or the largest alcohol beverage distributor in the World, Diageo of the UK. And this was by design. And by design, the DMA mainly uses market cap to determined the size of the company that can be considered a "gatekeeper". Not that a company is the largest or most profitable one, in its market class.
https://www.ft.com/content/49f3d7f2-30d5-4336-87ad-eea0ee0ecc7b
So the EU commission first targeted the 5 most successful tech in the US and then came up with the criteria for what you consider is the "keyword" ..... "gatekeeper". It was not the other way around.
If you were paying attention to any of the legal cases, the key factor is establishing the scope of the effected market. Everything flows from that definition. That’s why Facebook and Google theoretically fit the definition of gatekeeper and displaying anti-competitive behavior, and Apple does not. They dominate the entire market for search and advertising, and use that power to exclude competitors in an open market. The arguments against Apple only apply if you narrowly tailor the market to only IOS Apps and devices. And that won’t ever pass a legitimate judicial review. Think about it — does IDC track Apple devices as their own separate, unique market that has clone-like or work-alike competitors? Or does it compare it to the general market of devices? (Btw - I believe this was Apple’s real goal with the look and feel cases between them and Samsung, etc. The prevention of clones.)