EU’s “Gatekeeper” Rules Boost Smaller Players

And big US players are not happy.

Apple has been forced to allow users to specify non-Safari browsers as their default.

Browser choice was also opened in the Android world although users could already use any browser they want to.

Mostly, it is about companies like Apple, Google, TikTok and a few other mega players losing some control over their world. For example, if Apple iPhone users can load apps from a third party, Apple cannot keep 30 percent of the app’s revenue.

The law, called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), defines eight sectors including browsers, search engines, online advertising, social networks and others for determining a “dominant position”.

The American tech giants lobbied heavily against it, which probably, in reality, didn’t help their case. Now the president is suggesting he wants to use tariffs as a weapon to get Europe to back off. Again, it is not clear that it will work, but it might.

In the mean time, some small players are seeing major increases. For example, the Aloha Browser saw a 15 fold (1500 percent) increase in downloads.

The UK has a similar law called the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC).

Efforts are also underway in Japan, India, Brazil and South Korea.

There are two bills in the US that would try to rein in big tech – the Open App Markets Act and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. Both were introduced in the 2020-2021 timeframe and have gone nowhere. It is possible that with the current Congressional makeup and considering their outright hatred of big tech, the bills could go somewhere this year, but I think it is a longshot.

What is more interesting for the rest of us (non-multi-billion-dollar revenue companies), is that the market in the rest of the world could become available to smaller companies.

The Apples and Googles of the world will likely spend a lot of money to kill legislation like this, but it seems like that has not been very effective on the other side of the pond.

When it comes to security, Apple’s story is that giving people a choice hurts security because, after all, Apple knows best and we have never seen any security holes in Apple’s WebKit (WebKit is the mandatory back end for all Internet traffic on the iPhone and there have been a lot of security holes).

I think in the end this will be a win for consumers. I am not a big fan of the “walled garden” model that companies like Apple and Google try to enforce. While there are benefits from that model, consumers definitely get to pay for that in higher prices and less choices.

Credit: Cybernews

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