The Digital Markets Law comes into force today (7); See what changes for Apple, Google and more

This Thursday (7), the Digital Markets Act (DMA) comes into force in the European Union (EU). series of laws imposes strict rules to protect fair competition between tech giantsthey are now classified as gatekeepers.

With the new legislation, European Union officials aim to equalize digital platforms, making them more open and fair for companies large and small. The regulation took years to develop and is why Apple opened iOS to apps outside the App Store in Europe.

Once approved by the economic bloc, it was determined that all door controller companies must recognize and document the changes necessary to comply with the standards by March 6, 2023. Therefore, from today (7) the information must be forwarded to the European Commission. authorities.

The DMA mainly affects companies classified as door inspectors. To enter this selection, the technology company must meet two criteria:

• Achieving record annual earnings in Europe of over €7.5 billion in the last three financial years, or having a market average of €75 billion in the last financial year operating in at least three EU countries.
• Have at least 45 million monthly active users on the main platform in the EU and more than 10,000 annual active users for the last three financial years.

European authorities have themselves identified some of the services that meet these criteria, thereby defining some of the existing security guards. The companies are:

• Alphabet (Google);
• Apple;
• Aim;
• Amazon;
• Microsoft;
• ByteDance.

Since each of these companies operates in the market with different products and services, they must comply with DMA standards differently. See how each company is complying with the new European law below.

Alphabet (Google)

Many services of Alphabet, the holding company that owns Google, were covered by the DMA. These include Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube, Android and Google Chrome.

Changes to the company’s ecosystem were announced in January and March of this year, including changes to the availability of the company’s services. Highlights include:

• Selection screens on Android: On mobile phones, users will need to select the default search engine when they first access Chrome;
• The option to stop data sharing between Google ecosystem services (YouTube, search, advertising, Google Play, Chrome and others) needs to be added;
• A new API called Data Portability has been added to Google Takeout so that users can move their data outside of the ecosystem;
• The company’s search engine needs to offer more links to competing pages when searching for flights and hotels;
• Google needs to remove some search widgets from search results, such as Google Flights;
• Developers will now be able to add links to apps to describe alternative payment methods.

Apple

To comply with European legislation, Apple had to give up one of its core features: the exclusivity of the App Store. But this wasn’t the only change in its ecosystem.

See everything that’s changed:

• iOS should now allow browsers with rendering engines other than WebKit;
• iOS users will now be able to download applications to the App Store from alternative stores;
• Added a new framework and API that allows third-party stores to manage app installations and updates;
• iPhone’s NFC systems will now be open to contactless payment methods other than Apple Pay.

Aim

Several services from Meta, a company led by Mark Zuckerberg, fell into this category, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

• Added a new subscription option that eliminates the need to display ads and collect data on Facebook and Instagram;
• Added privacy management tools for data control on Facebook and Instagram;
• WhatsApp will allow chatting with alternative messaging programs.

Amazon

Amazon, which also operates virtual goods stores, was also classified as a watchdog. The company must comply with new legislation in the online store and advertising platform.

• Users can now prevent Amazon from collecting information about entertainment services (e.g. Amazon Prime Video, IMDb, and Twitch) by opting out of data collection terms;
• Amazon’s online store cannot give special treatment to companies in its search results or copy third-party products.

Microsoft

One of the platforms under surveillance by the authorities is Windows. To meet the DMA, the company will have to change its strategy for popularizing applications in the operating system.

• Windows should let you disable Bing as the system search engine;
• Windows should include the option to uninstall Microsoft Edge;
• Windows should allow you to configure other search engines like Google as system default.

ByteDance

Chinese company ByteDance, which owns TikTok, needs to change some of the social network’s rules to comply with the DMA. New features include:

• An API has been released that will allow European users to pass data to other applications;
• Registered developers should be able to migrate posts, followers, and other activity from TikTok to their own apps (with user permission);
• The “Download your own data” option has been improved.

Changes are specific to Europe

It is important to highlight all the changes mentioned. It is specific to the European publicEspecially in European Union member countries. Therefore, the App Store remains the exclusive source of applications, and WhatsApp, for example, does not support chats with other applications in the rest of the world.