The European Commission, the organization in Europe that ensures compliance with regulations in the EU territory, has set its sights on three of the major tech companies of the moment: Apple, Meta, and Google. The reason: they would be violating the already existing regulations of the Digital Markets Act, compliance with which is mandatory and, if not complied with, they will be subject to significant penalties.
Protecting the Digital Markets Act
As the European Commission has publicly shared, Europe has started investigating Apple, Meta, and Google for not complying with their duty under the current Digital Markets Act, or DMA. These would be serious infringements, considering that Europe has been warning for a long time that these changes would be essential to continue operating legally in the European continent.
In the case of Google and Apple, part of the investigations come from exercising illegitimate “gatekeeping”, preventing competition from flowing freely due to their dominant position in their ecosystems. Meta, on the other hand, is being investigated for not giving the option of cookie consent, beyond forcing to go through a paywall.
The European Commission and its digital mission
Since the approval of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018, an update to European digital laws that set an important precedent on how companies can use user data, numerous complaints and fines have been filed against large companies that were illegally using user data. In fact, Meta is the company that has violated these rules the most, so it is not surprising that they are also not complying with the DMA.
Many companies, especially those from North America, tend to be quite critical of the position taken by the European Union, always siding with its citizens over the economic interests that companies have in their businesses. In Europe, this is already something natural, but in countries with much less regulation in these areas, these brands can do whatever they want without being accountable to anyone, even if it is to the detriment of their users. Therefore, the role of the European Commission in safeguarding the population of the member countries is crucial in today’s times.
