The Digital Markets Law will revolutionize the Internet as we know it. In fact, since the entry into force on August 25 of some of its regulations, applications such as YouTube or TikTok have begun to apply changes to adapt to European regulations.
The main objective of the Digital Markets Law -or DMA- is to combat monopolies and there are different companies and platforms that are in the spotlight. They must get their act together if they don’t want to face large fines and, as you can imagine, two companies with a strong position in the market are Apple and Microsoft. It seems that both ask that some of your services are left out because… they are not used by a significant number of people.
Messages and Bing? Nah, no one uses them
Europe is getting tough on the biggest tech companies. Due to the European law of the right to repair, manufacturers are obliged to offer electronic products whose repair can be carried out without too many complications.
In addition, Europe is also responsible for the iPhone 15, supposedly, going to the USB-C port because, by 2025, all new devices sold on the continent must have that port. Apart from physical changes, what Europe is proposing with the WFD is a regulation for the digital framework.
Apple is one of the companies that Europe is going to ‘suffer’ the most in this sense and, in fact, the new law will force those from Cupertino to offer, at least in Europe, the possibility of installing alternative stores to the App Store . This is something that goes against everything Apple has fought for in recent years.but they will have to adapt.
In fact, it seems that Apple will be one of the “gatekeepers” companies in this new European phase. This means that the platforms designated in this way will have to comply with the obligations of the Law, such as the opening of the platform to third parties, the guarantee that the user can install the software as he wishes or the possibility of removing pre-installed apps, among other.
If the dominant companies – the “gatekeepers” – do not open up their software, they risk being fined up to 10% of the total annual turnover worldwide. It is not a small thing.
Well, having said all this, the Financial Times assures that Apple and Microsoft are dealing under the table with Brussels so that you leave some of your services out of those impositions. Continuing with Apple, it seems that those of Cupertino are arguing that iMessage does not reach the threshold of monthly active users required by the DMA (45 million per month) and, therefore, should not have to interoperate with other SMS services.
Opening iMessage is something that Apple would not like at all and, in fact, there is a “strong” battle between green and blue bubbles in the United States, a country where the courier service is used in ways that we cannot even imagine in Europe. To give us an idea, for them SMS is like Telegram or WhatsApp for us.
When Google started pushing RCS SMS in 2018 (enriched SMS in the style of what Apple already offered with iMessage), Apple voluntarily stayed out because they don’t want to open up the service to third parties. The WFD could force this, but as Apple seems to be saying that they do not meet those 45 million active users per monththey would be asking that they leave the service aside.
On the other hand, it is clear that Microsoft has a dominant position in the market, but those from Redmond would also be arguing before Brussels that Bing pales in number of users when compared to search engines like Google and browsers like Chrome.
Therefore, you should be able to opt out of the obligations of the WFD and continue to offer Bing as the native search engine of your operating system. In any case, this September 6 we will know the final list of guardians, although two months ago we learned that Europe had put on alert to Alphabet -Google-, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung.
Via | The Verge
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