The tech giants have to adjust to tighter controls from the EU.

After the basic agreement of the member states, a compromise has now also been reached in the EU Parliament on the planned law for digital markets (DMA).

Since the two are not too far apart in the basic points, a quick adoption of the new editions in the first half of 2022 is within reach.

They hit Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple in particular, and to a lesser extent Microsoft.

Hendrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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To this end, parliament and states must agree on a common line. This would make the EU a pioneer. The US is discussing more far-reaching laws. However, it is unclear whether these will ever be passed. "Game over for unfair competition", said the responsible EU MP Andreas Schwab (CDU).

With the DMA, the EU is reacting to the fact that traditional competition law has proven to be too slow to prevent the large Internet platforms from abusing their market power and taking control of more and more markets.

If the decision is made years later, it is usually too late for the competitors.

The European Commission therefore proposed at the end of 2020 that the major platforms should directly ban around twenty specific types of behavior.

On the list of prohibitions is the targeted preference for own services, but also, like Apple or Google, to captivate the users of its app stores or how providers of Internet marketplaces like Amazon collect customer data from retailers and then use it in competition with them.

The list can be adjusted if necessary.

80 billion euros market capitalization

The compromise that has now been reached by all the major political groups largely adheres to this. However, it slightly limits the number of companies affected. All corporations that control at least one platform and have a market capitalization of more than 80 billion euros should automatically be affected. In addition to the large American corporations, this is likely to affect a number of others such as the Dutch hotel platform Booking.

The Commission wanted to broaden the circle and had set a threshold of 65 billion euros. In addition to search engines, social networks and marketplaces, Parliament also wants to regulate voice assistants such as Siri or Alexa, internet browsers and internet-enabled televisions. In addition, it wants to make it easier for the Commission to control and ban “killer takeovers”, ie when tech giants simply buy up potential new competitors. The Commission reserves the right to monitor the conditions. In contrast to Germany's requirement, the national authorities should only cooperate.

Two changes should cause discussions with the states: new specifications for advertising and the interoperability of messenger services and social media. Parliament wants users to be able to send text messages from Whatsapp to Signal and to add messages from various social media to their “newsfeed”.

Most difficult of all was reaching agreement on the prohibition of personalized advertising for minors, particularly requested by the Social Democrats' chief negotiator, Evelyne Gebhardt.

The compromise now states that, as already provided for in the General Data Protection Regulation, users must agree to personalized advertising in advance.

In addition, it says in the “Recitals” that the data of minors should not be used for personalized advertising.

This binds the corporations legally, but not directly, so it is not a prohibition.

Parliament's Internal Market Committee is due to adopt the compromise on Monday.

The Council of Ministers is due to finalize its position on Thursday.

Discussions on the Digital Services Act (DSA) presented by the Commission together with the DMA are running a little more slowly.