Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

EU ushers in brave new world of Big Tech regulation

EU ushers in brave new world of Big Tech regulation

The Digital Markets Act clamps down on abuses in the platform economy.

The European Union has opened a new chapter in antitrust enforcement for the digital economy, adopting a raft of new rules designed to clamp down on abuses by some of the world’s largest tech firms.

In a deal brokered Thursday evening, officials from the European Parliament, Council and Commission concluded 15 months of intense negotiations on a new rulebook for Big Tech giants operating in the European market, the Digital Markets Act.

Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and other global players such as accommodation outfit Booking and Chinese e-commerce player Alibaba will come under the scope of the Digital Markets Act, which introduces a series of dos and don’ts for tech firms' behavior across digital markets. A final list of firms will now be drawn up by the Commission.

The rules' scope will encompass platforms — so-called gatekeepers — with a market capitalization of €75 billion or turnover in the European Economic Area equal to or above €7.5 billion. Affected platforms will also need to have 45 million active end-users and 10,000 yearly active business users.

“The gatekeepers will now have to comply with a well-defined set of obligations and prohibitions,” European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said. “This regulation, together with strong competition law enforcement, will bring fairer conditions to consumers and businesses for many digital services across the EU.”

For their part, the tech giants will be under intense pressure to update their products and services to comply with rules. After the expected final approval by Parliament and Council, which will come imminently, the text will enter into force 20 days after, and the rules will become applicable six months after that date.

"These rules are key to stimulating and unlocking digital markets, enhancing consumer choice, enabling better value sharing in the digital economy and boosting innovation. The European Union is the first to take such decisive action," said Cédric O, French minister of state with responsibility for digital.

The new rules outlaw certain anti-competitive practices for which Big Tech companies have come under fire in the past, such as combining user data from a number of different sources — something the German competition authority accused Facebook of in 2019 — as well as new requirements for operating systems to open up to third-party apps — giving iPhone users, for example, more flexibility in deciding what programs to install on their phones.

"Consumers will get the choice to use the core services of big tech companies such as browsers, search engines or messaging, and all that without losing control over their data," said Andreas Schwab, lead MEP on the file.

Tech giants will also be prevented from bundling services together, such as Google’s past actions of pre-installing Chrome on Android devices. Users should also be prompted upon first using a tech firm's service that they have the option of using a competitor — a move that may give users more choice when deciding whether to use an alternative browser on their mobile device, for example.

Moreover, interoperability rules to allow users to communicate across different messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, were also approved.

Ex-ante intervention


While EU competition regulators have in the past always played catch-up when it came to reining in these abusive practices, the DMA now outlaws such conduct outright, which is intended to help smaller players to compete against larger companies.

“We are witnessing a shift from a punitive system, where large corporations are punished through fines and court systems, to one that also cuts the power off at the source,” said Marco Carlizzi, partner at RSM Legal Group.

“This new approach will facilitate the development of smaller digital companies that previously struggled to break into the market.”

For its part, the tech lobby highlighted certain reservations about the DMA text after its adoption on Thursday evening, calling for a seat at the table to hash out an agreement on how some of the technical details of the rules could be agreed upon.

“There are still several parts of the text that lack clarity, so we urge the European Commission to collaborate with industry players to help them clarify and apply them in a sensible way to ensure we get the best results,” said Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, director general of the tech lobby DigitalEurope, which represents players like Amazon, Apple, Facebook's parent company Meta and Google.

“Several of the new rules will require major technical and legal work, such as the interoperability requirements and data-sharing obligations,” she added.

Big Tech’s lobby efforts fall flat


Since its initial proposal in December 2020, the DMA had been subject to a significant lobbying push from Big Tech, with Apple CEO Tim Cook even saying at one point that the efforts would “destroy the security of the iPhone.” Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, has said that the rules would “fossilize” innovation in the digital economy.

On Thursday evening, Apple repeated its concerns that the rules could open up security vulnerabilities.

“We remain concerned that some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities for our users while others will prohibit us from charging for intellectual property in which we invest a great deal,” a spokesperson said.

Moreover, there had been a growing sense of skepticism from Washington about the rules, despite President Joe Biden's administration adopting more of a progressive approach to antitrust enforcement in the digital economy.

A series of letters had been dispatched from U.S. government departments to Brussels lawmakers, highlighting concerns that the move disproportionately affected American businesses. That narrative, however — which primarily came from the U.S. Commerce Department — was eventually toned down, after the White House came out in support of clamping down on Big Tech abuses.

The clock now starts ticking down to identify the platforms that will be subject to the rules before formal enforcement procedures begin. This will require the Commission to reshuffle staff to ensure there is sufficient capacity for the work.

Previous estimates had predicted 80 members of staff in the Commission would work on enforcement of the DMA, but this is one area in which lead MEP Schwab had been consistently critical, penning a recent letter in which he called for at least 220 posts to be created in the EU executive.

The Commission will be under a tight deadline to effectively enforce the DMA, with the list of prohibitions and obligations becoming applicable to firms within the DMA's scope likely toward the end of this year.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×