UK rushes through Digital Markets Act copycat to regulate mostly US big tech
After years of promising legislation against Big Tech firms such as Apple, the UK has now sped up the process to get Digital Markets Act clone passed before its general election.
UK Parliament
Up to now, the UK's progress on its tub-thumping insistence it will control Big Tech has been slow to the point of ridicule. It announced a government department in 2020, but didn't start it until 2021. Then when it was started with at least 60 staff, the UK literally did not give it powers to do anything, not until 2023.
However, also in 2023, the finally active Digital Markets Unit (DMU) did get going with a Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. While its stated purpose is to lead to establishing codes of conduct for Big Tech firms, it's a step toward emulating the existing Digital Markets Act in the EU.
That EU law is what has forced Apple to allow third-party App Stores on the iPhone and soon also the iPad. The passing of the law has been followed by the EU launching multiple investigations into Apple that could result in fines.
According to the UK's Press Gazette, the bill will enable the government to fine tech firms 10% of their annual turnover if they are found to abuse their market position. It's not clear how such abuse will be determined, but it will concern whether the firms:
- Trade on fair and reasonable terms
- Present to users or potential users any options or default settings in relation to the relevant digital activity in a way that allows those users or potential users to make informed and effective decisions in their own best interests about those options or settings.
- Give explanations, and a reasonable period of notice, to users or potential users of the relevant digital activity, before making changes in relation to the relevant digital activity where those changes are likely to have a material impact on the users or potential users
So far, it's all big talk. How the details will work has yet to be hammered out.
The bill was, though, just one of very many legislative bills making their way through the UK parliamentary system -- until this week. On May 22, 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for a General Election, and that immediately changed proceedings.
The UK's General Election does not have a fixed date like the US Presidential one, it merely has to fall within a certain time. But once its date of July 4, 2024, was set, it also followed that Parliament will be dissolved on May 30, 2024.
Bills cannot be carried over from one Parliament to another, so the UK has been picking which it will rush through, and which it will abandon. Consequently, on May 23, Parliament debated and passed the bill.
"It has been a pretty long ride when one looks back to the beginning of the suite of digital Bills in the past two years," said Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat) in the debate as detailed in Hansard, "starting with the Online Safety Bill, then the digital markets Bill, and now the non-lamented data protection Bill, and I look forward to further digital legislation in the autumn or the beginning of next year."
"We believe overall that this is a good Bill that takes the first steps to regulating the behaviour of the big tech companies, which is long overdue," said Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Labour).
For the Conservatives, the party currently in government and responsible for the bill, Lord Offord of Garvel said that it "will be vital in driving growth, innovation and productivity and in protecting consumers."
Following the passing of the bill, the next stage before it enters into law is that it must be approved by the UK monarchy. That approval is scheduled to take place today, May 24, 2024.
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Comments
Since the Thatcher government caring or doing any thing about local British industry/school/health is just a nebulous mind game played on the British population. In the end it British life just gets weaker and America is tracking 20-30 years behind Britain on a similar path.
If Britain is looking for some tiny kernel of guidance look at Norway (not the EU) and the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund they won't and I would also hope Guyana (massive new oil riches) will they won't either. Long range selfless planning just isn't there for most.
https://www.nbim.no/
Ironically small British businesses (usually strong tory supporters) have taken it on the jaw with Brexit they were sold a bill of goods almost like the last nail in the coffin.......
I hear you but there are some points in which Apple needs 'guidance' on how it deals with users. Lots of discussions on those. That said, I am curious how much of 'this' is coming from developers that want more money and iPhone users that want more freedom in using their phones, rather than governments who just want to hobble Apple and other successful US tech companies. The latter appears to be true in the EU where Vestager and her commission are clearly targeting American companies. One thing for sure, it is not coming from Android users who have decided which OS and hardware they prefer. On that point, that is how it should be - our choice to use the phones we want, from the companies we want to buy from and let market forces shape their products and policies within the law.
Even this is sketchy because the actual cost of a phone to a consumer varies widely when carrier subsidies are accounted for. You can get any iPhone with subsidies even though you are paying for them indirectly.
You lost me at the blocking of streaming services. As a customer you are paying for Internet and that is one you can use as you see fit. There is no Internet without streaming package I am aware of. The CableTV and home phone business is in a nursing home bed on life support with a shrinking customer base. Cable companies will become ISP's and have to find new ways to gouge us. In the end wired ISP's will be used by businesses only.
since the election the Tories gave them brexit without actually giving them brexit. The laws and government processes the people opposed about the EU the government just got replicated. And not resolved. Just look at the immigration chaos as just one example of failure. So the people quite rightly feel betrayed and will vote them out.
that British Labour would be even more on board with EU lovin’ is irrelevant. The betrayers will be punished, good and hard.
What the DMA will actually cause is an increase in the number of people losing their shirts to fraud. It might as well be called the fund Russia and North Korea act.
Perhaps Apple should do what Micheal Dell advised all those years ago 'Shut down and give the money back to shareholders' just to put the middle finger up at the politicians telling them how to design their products.
That is something that must be dealt with by other laws.
The real point is where people can get their 'shirts' from and under which rules.
The whole thing was a shambles and now we have evidence to prove it. I'm sure there is more to come on that front.
The referendum itself was never binding, it was advisory.
The referendum law was botched. Leaving out virtually all EU resident British citizens (myself included) and sixteen and seventeen year olds. Precisely the people who would be most impacted. It didn't establish a high majority threshold either and in the end was decided by a minority.
The Leave Campaign was led by a declared Remainer who is now widely accepted as a person who will lie to anyone to get his way. The less said about Farage the better.
Some UK laws have been altered to make them worse than before. Just look at the quality of UK seawater and rivers.
If many EU laws basically remain as they were that isn't a bad thing as they are pretty darn good. They will likely go largely unchanged once the government after already failing multiple times to review them in the promised time frames.
The UK entered a downward spiral as one Prime Minister after another steered the boat into every political iceberg it could find.
Famously we had Prime Minister's Musical Chairs for a time (and the music was a funeral march!).
Some 20 years later I now have my vote back (as do millions more expats) and the Tories won't be getting it.
I'm just waiting for my postal vote application to be approved.
The EU DMA/DSA is a very good stab at tackling the issues of the digital age. This UK variant might not be up to snuff. I haven't read the bill but it's something that is needed.
The UK is probably the king of destruction. First, it was mandating USB-C as a connection standard, which is inane. Of all the problems (???) to choose, they chose cable connectivity($%???!!). Now, they're trying to regulate app sales. Let's see how long it takes for them to destroy the software apps business.
Can you imagine Zuckerberg telling the UK 'don't worry we can self regulate ourselves'.
It isn't a bill that only applies to Apple.