Sun, Dec 01 2024
Yesterday marked the end of the six IT giants' compliance deadline under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) of the European Union. Thus, EU enforcers are currently actively evaluating Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance/TikTok, Meta, and Microsoft.
The bloc will keep an eye on their compliance with other legal obligations pertaining to data portability, platform interoperability, and user choice, as well as the DMA requirements to treat business customers of their regulated core platform services equitably. If they don't, they could be fined heavily, up to 10% or even 20% of their yearly global turnover.
The nonconfidential versions, or the initial batch of gatekeeper compliance reports, are now available on the Commission's DMA website. (Links to each individual report are provided below.)
The reports include diverse degrees of information regarding the measures implemented thus far in reaction to the law. Although it is written in quite readable prose, Apple's public report is by far the briefest, consisting only of a 12-page summary that focuses on changes to its App Store, iOS, and Safari browser. In contrast, Microsoft has chosen to divide disclosures into multiple documents that are related to its two core platform services (Windows and LinkedIn).
Microsoft's reporting appears designed to be too dull for anyone to bother reading, while Apple uses the public report as another platform to rail against the EU's enforced changes to its "integrated, end-to-end system" and warn of the DMA creating "new avenues for malware, fraud and scams, illicit and harmful content, and other privacy and security threats." Its compliance disclosures are divided into several downloads and written in formal legal language with redactions, indicating that it has chosen to duplicate formal filings to the Commission for this publicly accessible portion of its DMA reporting requirements. Not to mention the enormous total number of pages.
In other places, Amazon has created the glossiest-looking report, encasing its DMA disclosures in an eye-catching graphic wrapper of images, graphs, and pull quotes, giving the impression of an eye-catching business brochure.
Google's report is lengthy and incredibly detailed, spanning more than 200 pages. Aside from being written in light gray text with several hyperlinked footnotes and supplemented with screenshots, illustrations, and box-outs, it is also not particularly aesthetically pleasing. Given that eight of its products are categorized as essential platform services, the length is at least fair.
The lengthy disclosures from social networking behemoths Meta and ByteDance are understandable given that they offer less regulated services.
While Meta has put its customary heavy PR gloss, ByteDance's paper reads like raw, redacted legalese with no attempt to polish anything. The report begins by summarizing the number of personnel (11,000) and engineering hours/technical labor (590,000) that it states it has committed to working on the DMA response. Additionally, Facebook stuffs the document to the gills with hyperbole regarding the "new and meaningful choices" it says it is providing to European customers in reaction to the law.
Feel sorry for the Commission enforcement officials, as their task will entail sifting through all of these disclosures and obtaining a great deal more data to ascertain whether or not the internet companies are, in fact, DMA compliant.
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