Campaign groups say that if the EU lets Apple get away with its response to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), then the law will be rendered toothless.
Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta have all taken the same approach to the antitrust law, say the groups: to seek technical compliance while ensuring that their market dominance remains protected …
Max von Thun is a director of the Open Markets Institute, a group which aims to expose the dangers posed by large companies gaining too much power. He told The Verge that Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google were all taking the same approach to the DMA.
[Their proposals are] superficial compliance designed to tick regulatory boxes without posing any real threat to the gatekeepers’ market dominance […]
Big Tech’s strategy towards the DMA is to introduce changes that appear to open up their walled gardens, but that are actually unworkable or unappealing to businesses and users.
Top comment by The Insane World
The law was written to benefit corporations, not consumers. It was lobbied by major competitors, with some “consumer advocacy groups” supporting in principle, not really grasping the motivations of companies like Spotify.
While I’m no fan of unfettered corporations, it wasn’t the consumers that initiated this. It was entrenched market players that wanted this because of their own desire to be even bigger. That tainted the foundations of the law. It’s how you end up here.
You can’t force a company to relinquish its intellectual property for free, and just because people like Ben keep quoting “malicious compliance”, doesn’t mean that it’s actually malicious. Maybe, it is just a poorly written law because it started from a bad seed.
This view is shared by Jan Penfrat, senior policy advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi) – a non-profit which seeks to prevent abuse of power by businesses and governments alike.
None of the changes proposed by gatekeepers “have led to any meaningful change to the power structures that help keep those companies at the top.”
He called out Apple specifically, stating that if the company were allowed to get away with its response, the law would effectively be lost.
Penfrat went as far as to call these changes “malicious,” saying they could actually make matters much worse for developers trying to get away from Apple’s app store monopoly. “Under the current Apple proposal, it seems unlikely anyone would even attempt to challenge the gatekeeper’s monopoly. It’s simply not worth it. If the EU Commission lets this pass, the DMA will be lost.”
A piece in Bloomberg echoes these views, arguing that Apple has put itself on a collision course with the EU. We have previously said that Apple’s response guarantees the company will end up in court.
Photo by surasak_ch on Unsplash
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments