Key Highlights:
- The Digital Market Act will come into force in October.
- The violations of rules will cause fines ranging from 10% of the company’s global turnover to 20% for the repeat offenders of law and would also face an acquisition ban.
- Digital Market Act will apply the companies with a market capitalization of 7.5 billion Euros in annual turnover, and at least 45 million monthly users
The Digital Market Act will come into force in October. The EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager confirmed that the new rules targeting the U.S. giants will be imposed from October.
The new digital market rules were proposed last year under the name Digital Markets Act and it listed out the dos and don’ts for Amazon, Apple, Meta, Alphabet unit Google and Microsoft.
Digital Market Act scares Tech giants
It was also reported that the violations of these rules will cause fines ranging from 10% of the company’s global turnover to 20% for the repeat offenders of law and would also face an acquisition ban.
While addressing the news conference, Margrethe Vestager said, “And with the processes foreseen, these pieces of legislation, well, they will have been voted in and publicized in the Official Journal, so coming into force sometime in October.”
The companies which are online gatekeepers that control access to their platforms and the data generated will have six months to comply with new rules.
What is the Digital Markets Act?
Digital Markets Act has outlined a set of rules for online gatekeepers i.e. the companies which control data and platform access. It implies gatekeepers in online intermediation services, social networks, search engines, operating systems, online advertising services, cloud computing, video-sharing services, web browsers, and virtual assistants.
The tech giants should make the messaging services interoperable and offer business users access to their data. It will enable the business to be able to promote competing products and services on a platform and reach deals with customers of the platforms.
Digital Markets Act will prohibit the companies from having a bias towards their own services over the other rivals or prevent users from removing pre-installed software or apps. It will apply the companies with a market capitalization of 75 billion Euros, 7.5 billion Euros in annual turnover, and at least 45 million monthly users.
