In December 2020, the EU Commission presented the law for digital markets (Digital Markets Act, DMA) in order to finally curtail the market power of the Internet companies Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.

Late on Thursday evening, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers agreed on the final version – in record time.

What does this mean for Big Tech and consumers?

Here are answers to the most important questions when it comes to new hurdles against market abuse and sending text messages from Threema to Whatsapp:

Why does the EU need the Digital Markets Act at all?

Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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The big Internet companies, above all the five American companies Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, now not only control their core markets, but also use the control over their platforms to advance into new markets and thus build entire ecosystems to which users are effectively captivated.

A good example of this is the "Google Shopping" case: Google had systematically placed its price comparison portal Shopping better in its own search engine, put the competition at a disadvantage and thus also "appropriated" the market for price comparison portals.

This is exactly what the DMA is supposed to prevent in the future.

Don't we have competition law for this?

So far, the European Commission has actually taken action against the companies "ex post", i.e. after it had identified violations of competition law.

The problem with this is that such processes – Google Shopping is a good example of this too – take years, if not more than a decade.

In a fast-paced market like the Internet, it's long since too late for the competition.

The DMA therefore gives the Commission an instrument to act “ex ante”, i.e. before the damage is done.

What exactly does the DMA do?

The EU thus prohibits the companies concerned from a number of very specific types of behavior.

There is a kind of "black list" with strict prohibitions in Article 5 and a somewhat vague "grey list" in Article 6.

The almost 20 types of behavior are mainly based on cartel cases from the past few years.

This includes, for example, the ban on self-preference for one's own services, as in the Google Shopping case.

The Internet companies can no longer tie their business customers to their own app store, as Apple is accused of doing, or like Amazon use the data of the suppliers of products on its marketplace to then compete with them.

Because this relates to old cases, new anti-competitive practices are naturally not taken into account.

However, the Commission should be able to expand the articles.