The European Union has achieved a passed the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a sweeping antitrust law intended to rein in Apple, Google, Meta and other tech giants. Lawmakers reached an “interim” agreement on the law on Thursday, after hours of negotiations, the European Parliament wrote in .
The law may have impacts, some of which may extend beyond Europe. Most notably, one of the key provisions of the DMA is that messaging service providers will need to make their services interoperable with other services,” said EU lawmakers. the largest messaging services (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage) will have to open their doors and interact with smaller messaging platforms, if they ask for it,” the EU Parliament said after the agreement.
It is currently unclear whether this requirement applies to interoperability between the major messaging platforms themselves. Parliament wrote that interoperability provisions for social networks “will be assessed in the future.”
In a statement, an Apple spokesperson said the company was “concerned” about several aspects of the law. “We remain concerned that some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary security and privacy holes for our users while others will prohibit us from charging fees for the assets.” wisdom in which we invest a lot,” the spokesperson said. “We believe deeply in competition and creating thriving competitive markets around the world, and we will continue to work with our stakeholders across Europe in the hope of minimizing these impacts.” this hole.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The DMA also bans companies from “combining personal data for targeted advertising” without express consent, a move that could limit the ability of Meta and others to serve ads. targeted ads for users. Equal New York Times There are still many questions about how European lawmakers will enforce these new regulations and the companies mentioned are likely to present legal challenges.
Earlier proposals of the law also included provisions that would change the way Apple and Google run their app stores. Under the proposed rules, Apple would have to allow users to install apps from other stores, and both Apple and Google would be required to allow developers to bypass their companies; storefront and use their own checkout. It’s not clear if those terms were included in the latest deal. The European Parliament will hold a press conference on Friday, when they are expected to share more details.
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