EU Approves Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act
Hartley Charlton (Hacker News):
European Union lawmakers have approved landmark legislation to heavily regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other big tech firms.
[…]
Under the DMA, gatekeepers may have to:
- Allow users to install apps from third-party app stores and sideload directly from the internet.
- Allow developers to offer third-party payment systems in apps and promote offers outside the gatekeeper’s platforms.
- Allow developers to integrate their apps and digital services directly with those belonging to a gatekeeper. This includes making messaging, voice-calling, and video-calling services interoperable with third-party services upon request.
- Give developers access to any hardware feature, such as “near-field communication technology, secure elements and processors, authentication mechanisms, and the software used to control those technologies.”
There are many more requirements, including one I hadn’t seen before: allowing third-party voice assistants as the default.
The final bill avoids transforming social networks and search engines into censorship tools, which is great news. It also retains important principles under the previous internet rules that helped to make the internet free, such as allowing liability exemptions for online platforms for the speech of others and limiting user monitoring. And it improves things as well, by imposing higher standards for transparency around content moderation and creating more user control over algorithmically-curated recommendations.
However, the DSA is not a panacea for all problems users face online and the final deal isn’t all good news: It gives way too much power to government agencies to flag and remove potentially illegal content and to uncover data about anonymous speakers.
Previously:
- Netherlands and Apple Reach External Payments Agreement
- EU and Possibly US to Require USB-C for Phones
- Proposed EU DMA: USB-C, Messaging, NFC
- Proposed EU Digital Markets and Services Acts
- Proposed Digital Markets Act to Require Sideloading
Update (2022-07-25): See also: Hacker News.
2 Comments RSS · Twitter
It will be interesting to see what user & developer hostile concessions apples lawyers will find to comply with this.
Well this seems like rather good news.
@Kristoffer: Indeed. I can think of a few, which I won't be suggesting.
