On March 6, 2024, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) comes into force. A European law which aims to put an end to the anti-competitive practices of large digital platforms. Concretely, it has major consequences on many services that you most likely use: here is what changes today with the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
It has been planned for a long time, this Wednesday March 6 is undoubtedly an important date for the European digital market. This is the entry into force of the Digital Markets Act, abbreviated as DMA, a new European legislation with great ambitions. It seems to be bothering the big digital companies, notably the “Gamam”, which shows a certain importance. On your social networks, search engines, browsers, operating systems, instant messaging applications, certain changes are taking place starting today: voices.
What is the Digital Markets Act?
For a long time, large digital companies have played with European Union laws: this is still the case with the Digital Markets Act. However, this time, the EU seems to have toughened its tone. The philosophy of this text is to put an end to the anti-competitive practices of large digital platforms which are concentrated around a few companies.
Moreover, the DMA is more restrictive for the main ones, those which are most used on European soil. This law thus generates several changes on all the major platforms in question, but only on European soil. The Gamams (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta) are not inclined to generalize them to the rest of the global market.
What also changes with the DMA are the penalties provided for. The law provides for modifications of up to 10% of global turnover and up to 20% in the event of a repeat offense. The European Commission is also entitled to decide on daily penalties if it finds non-compliance with the regulation, up to 5% of global turnover.
Regarding the fiscal years of the main companies we are talking about, this represents hundreds of millions, even billions of euros.
What will change on your iPhone
Apple just released iOS 17.4, a bigger update than it seems if you live in the European Union. It allows developers to create their own application store: the App Store is therefore no longer the only one authorized. However, Apple is able to maintain control over the applications that will be published there, and has figured out how to limit its competitors on its own operating system. Alternative stores can be set as an option by default in the smartphone settings. The App Store is also opening up to services cloud gaming : it will no longer be essential to use a web browser.
It is also the end of the Apple Pay monopoly: applications will be able to decide to use another payment solution on iPhone. Moreover, some banks could leave Apple Pay, in order to avoid Apple’s commission on transactions.
As for web browsers, when configuring the device, other browsers will be offered: Safari will no longer be the only one. To go further, web browsers can now use rendering engines other than WebKit, which were mandatory until now.
Apple removed Progressive Web Apps, before reversing course: PWAs will still exist, but will have to use WebKit. Moreover, the European Commission will carry out the investigation to verify whether Apple is complying with the DMA.
Changes made to Google and Android
On Google, certain features will become unavailable. For example, it will no longer be possible to quickly access Google Maps via the Google search engine. Until now, when you searched for an address or a specific location, Google put a link allowing you to access a route on Google Maps.
This will no longer be possible in the European Union from March 6. Even chosen for YouTube, Google Flights or even Google Shopping. This does not mean that these sites will disappear from search results, but that they will no longer have an advantage over others.
More generally, regarding the Google account, you will need to specify that you want to connect the different Google services together in your account settings. Which was the case by default before, as Google specifies in its press release.
This also means that it is possible to create a separate account depending on the service: one account for YouTube and another separate account for Gmail. On Android, mainly web browsers and search engines are offered when configuring the device.
Send a message on WhatsApp, receive it on Messenger: messaging becomes interoperable
Major instant messaging services are becoming interoperable. For the moment, only WhatsApp and Messenger are affected, namely two services offered by Meta.
The idea is that you can send a message on one of the services and receive it on the other. For the moment, the company has not communicated on these changes.
Your Windows PCs are also experiencing changes
Microsoft has also implemented a Windows update, which will be deployed throughout the month of March, as the company specifies in its press release. For example, it will be possible to uninstall all pre-installed applications, such as Camera, Cortana, Web Search from Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Edge or even Photos.
Furthermore, you can desynchronize your Microsoft account from your Windows account: the accounts can be completely separated. Finally, this update does not bring Copilot: the European market is currently exclusive.
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