- “Thank you, Rita, and thank you very much also from me for the opportunity to take part in this meeting. So I would like to just recall a little bit the actions that the Commission has taken in the past year or so regarding the DMA. As you probably know, we started actually more than a year ago in September 2023 with the designation of 22 core platform services from six companies, six gatekeepers. And for this the obligation went live last year in March, just over a year ago, on the seventh, and at the same date, the gatekeepers had to submit compliance reports explaining what compliance solutions they have put in place. And also in the same month of March last year, we held workshops, public workshops where they could interact with stakeholders and explain the compliance solutions. Now the compliance report is a yearly obligation. So we just a few days ago received the second round of compliance report from these six gatekeepers. And there is a public summary of these reports that is also available for um for whoever is interested. Now, in the course of last year, we designated a seventh gatekeeper, a Booking.com, a European company, incidentally. And that we, um, we designated in May. So for them the obligation to comply with the with the DMA kicked out six months after in November and also for booking, we held a workshop at the end of November last year where they explained to the public their compliance solutions. We think this workshop has been well received by the public and by stakeholders.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “They need to be tested on the market. We need to see that effectively. They need to compliance. And if that is not the case, we need to refine the solution. A typical example of such continuous improvements are technical measures supporting data portability and data access, which we want to continue working on. Listening to the feedback of stakeholders. But as I mentioned, not always the dialogue is sufficient to achieve A a good solution and that for that reason, on top of this dialogue, we also opened non-compliance investigations. We have six of them running at the moment, five of which we opened in March last year, one in June last year. Very briefly, we are investigating both Apple and Alphabet and in relation to, um, to their obligation pertaining to app stores and in particular regarding the provision that that requires gatekeepers to allow other apps, other businesses to be able to communicate directly to consumers and basic consumers users and basically tell them if they have better offers outside the platforms. The DMA says the the other app developers should be free to communicate these offers to their customers for free, and this is technically called steering. That's something that neither Apple nor Google nor alphabet allowed, and they put in place a solution last year in March saying, this is how we are going to comply with the with the DMA. For many reasons, we thought that solution was not compliant, and that's why we opened an investigation on the two of them on alphabet.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “Now going a bit more to the substance of our activity, um, I think we we have seen we start seeing very concrete examples of the impact that the DMA is having on the digital markets in Europe. Um, and just to mention a few, um, probably most of you, all of you hopefully have received messages on your phones that Apple and Android now allow you to choose easily and in a neutral way, the browser you want to use and the search engine you want to use. And this is through the use of choice screens that are user friendly. And we have experienced on the market a very important movement and more and more people choosing alternative browsers and the alternative to Chrome on the iPhone, and to switch to Chrome on the Android devices and to Safari on the iPhone and alternative search engines than the dominant Google search. And of course, we start from numbers that are so high that in terms of percentage, the movement is very small, but very important for this alternative operator. Just a few days ago, Mozilla that maintains the Firefox browser said that they their usage has increased 90 something percent in Germany and 110% in France over the last year. And they said very openly that this was thanks to the to the DMA. And also every EU European user now is asked whether they agree that their personal data used by Google, meta and TikTok can be combined across platforms and the user can say no, I don't want to share the data across platforms.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms
- “And finally, with the designation of booking, booking has a thoroughly eliminated all sorts of parity clauses all over Europe. So the parity clauses are basically those contractual obligations that wouldn't allow a hotel to offer better terms on their own website or on a competing platform than what they did on Google. So this is no longer the case in Europe again thanks to the to the DMA. So these developments are having the effect of the DMA entering into effect and the dialogue with the Commission services and the gatekeepers, and of course, with a very important input of stakeholders, other businesses and end users. And many of these changes have not occurred because of non-compliance actions we have taken. Some of these have been helped by ongoing investigation, but many have been taken through the regulatory dialogue with the gatekeepers, which is also in the spirit of the DMA. The DMA is a regulatory instrument. So in the first place, we want to engage with the gatekeepers in a spirit of collaboration and trying to find compliant solutions. Of course, if that is not possible, if gatekeepers do not respond positively to the requests of the market and of the Commission. The DMA gives us very strong and important tools to enforce its provisions, and we will not shy away to use them whenever it is necessary. And but we continue a dialogue with the keepers on possible further improvements on their compliance solutions. Even those that have mentioned maybe they are not perfect, they are a great step forward, but they need to be refined.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “We opened another investigation on concerns that alphabet is favoring its own vertical search services, for example, Google, Google Shopping or Google Hotels over similar rival services. This is technically called self-preferencing, although it is forbidden by the DMA. And the solution that alphabet put in place last March again was not satisfactory. That's why we are investigating it. We we had a second case open to investigate Apple designed for the web for the choice of the browser what I mentioned earlier, and in this case, Apple has refined its initial compliance solutions. The one of March he has refined in the course of the years, and the new solution has received an initial welcome from stakeholders. So we are assessing the impact of this new solution, which certainly looks a lot better than the initial one. And and we will take a decision accordingly. A third and final case that we opened against Apple of non-compliance relates to the contractual requirements for third party app developers and app stores. So another thing that the DMA does completely new is to require Apple to allow alternative app stores on its operating system and on the on the iPhones and also on the iPad. This is new. Apple rolled out a solution to allow that, which in our view was full of strings and difficulties attached that in a way that it doesn't make effective. And we are investigating also that. Finally, the sixth investigation that we have running is regarding is vis a vis meta, and it's about the obligation that meta has to require consent for the use of personal data on its social networks and what it has to provide if the consent is denied in its initial solution.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “A meta came out with what is known as the paper consent solution. So either you give consent for your data or you have to pay a monthly subscription for Facebook, a monthly subscription for Instagram. And we did. We did not think that this was an alternative that was compliant with the DMA, because basically it was forcing users to choose something radically different from what their experience with Facebook and Instagram is. So that's not a valid alternative. In November last year, meta rolled out another solution that requires less data from from users what is called less personalized a solution. And we are now checking how compliant this solution is. That is part of our ongoing investigative work. These are ongoing procedures. We our intention, our firm intention. And we already mentioned also to the not only at the technical level which we represent today, but also political level, the commitment of the Commission to do so. And of course, as usual for ongoing investigation, we are not at liberty to share more details about what what the investigation is. But of course, the Commission will communicate as soon as it reaches a decision. Um, also. And now I close and we would like to mention two further investigations that we have opened vis a vis Apple last September. These are a different type of investigation from the six I have just mentioned.”
EU rules on digital competition · Privacy & digital economy · EU Competition policy
- “For example, they they can choose that the data that they generate while watching YouTube is not shared with Google Ads. And this is true across many gatekeepers and many platforms. Although we made good progress regarding portability of data when moving from one platform to another, how to very move easily your photos, your contacts, your History. If you decide to switch from one platform to the other for business users now, finally they can have access to the data they generate on the platforms of the gatekeepers. Historically, gatekeepers considered this data their own property. The DMA actually says the opposite. The data generated by the interaction of a merchant and the user on Amazon regarding the goods and the services that this merchant is selling is not the property of Amazon is the property of the merchant. Of course, if the user gives the consent for this data to be used. And so finally, businesses can know who their customers are, how they engage with their products on the platforms, and can also communicate directly with them. And also we require Google and a and they agreed to not to compel users to have a Gmail account if they wanted to, um, to set up an Android handset before this was a must. That would mean that the competitors email providers to Google would have very little chance actually to serve customers, because everybody was basically compelled to have a Gmail account. This is no longer the case.”
EU rules on digital competition · Privacy & digital economy · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms
- “Yeah. In fact, first of all, thank you very much for that support. We hear it. We hear it loud and clear. We've been hearing it in the last year. We heard it a lot before, and actually we saw it in the determination with which the Parliament and the member states drafted and discussed and improved these regulations based on the proposal of the of the Commission. Um, perhaps just I had one point we will not be able to discuss is the fines. Um, it was mentioned that in the case of Apple, Spotify last year, and a newspaper got it badly wrong. Um, it's probably the job of a newspaper to report whatever they want to their readers, but it's not. And it would not be right for the European Commission, first of all, to speculate or to, you know, for a commission official to anticipate what is a decision of the College of Commissioners. So on the topic of fines, simply, we cannot say anything here on the point of innovation. We fully agree there is a narrative that the DMA is bad for. Innovation is a narrative that is very much pushed by very few companies that happen to be gatekeepers as well. And with the much larger number of other companies, we also talk to the startups, the medtech, the small tech.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “Europe is a very big market. It's very important. The other thing we can do is to have a dialogue with colleagues in other jurisdictions, and to coordinate as much as possible our efforts so that it is not an isolated effort. And any solution we bring forward, or anything we require gatekeepers, is ideally require those in other jurisdictions, or at the least not contradictory with requirements in other jurisdictions. And that is why we maintain a very close dialogue with colleagues. For example, in Japan who passed recently a law on also on online ecosystems very similar to the DMCA, with the colleagues in the UK who have a recent. Also the enact that in the mechanics is different from the DMCA, but in the purpose is very, very similar to it. And with colleagues in the US where there is no. As you all know, there is no regulation for digital platforms, but there has been a very active actions from the antitrust point of view from the agencies bringing forward cases, also from the states, bringing forward cases that aim at achieving exactly what the DMCA aims at achieving, and also that the collaboration continues as fruitfully as it has been in the past few years. Yes.”
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- “They are so-called specification investigations. So it is not to ascertain or sanction non-compliance with the DMA, but is basically to specify how a gatekeeper should apply specific provisions of the DMA. So it's a less adversarial type of procedure. It doesn't involve any sanction. And in the spirit is collaborative to understand well and to see in practice what needs to be done to comply with the DMA. Both investigations relate to the obligation of Apple to make to make interoperable the features of its operating system. For the iOS in particular, one is focusing on connected devices, which is the the name for which you know. Earphones, ear plugs and smart watches and other smart devices. Talk to the operating system. And the second relates to the process with which developers can ask interoperability to Apple. In both respect, we found that Apple did not fully implement the DMA, and we thought this was an area where we could discuss with Apple. We could actually specify more in detail what they need to do. So these these procedures started in September. They ran on a shorter timeline, which is a six month timeline. Now we are in March. We are basically very close to the six months deadline for these decisions, and I think we have done more actions, but I think now we are over the 20 minutes that we have been allocated. So I will stop here. But of course we. Rita, we are happy to take any questions. Thank you.”
EU rules on digital competition · Interoperability requirements for digital platforms · EU Competition policy
- “They really see the potential of the DMA, of unlocking innovation. And there is I think there is no doubt that gatekeepers are innovative companies and they have been innovative companies. They have been very innovative companies. But it's also the reality that the market situation, as it is today, is such that their incentive to innovate has much diminished because they have also a very big incentive to maintain the status quo, because the status quo is one where they have a comfortable, very strong position, where they are able to monetize their investment of the past. And that's exactly what history and economic theory tells us, that whatever the history of a company, when it becomes when it has market power, it's in their interest to exploit. And that is why we are absolutely convinced that what we are doing is unlocking innovation in Europe, not only for European companies, of course, for every company that operates in Europe. And our wish is that it coordinated with the effort in other jurisdictions to unlock the same innovative potential, not only in the European Union, but globally. Of course, there is no extraterritoriality in the DMA. What we can do is to do our part in Europe.”
EU rules on digital competition · EU Competition policy