The Digital Markets Law aims to put an end to the abuses of the big technology companies.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA if we take into account its acronym in English) is a bill within the framework of the European Union that has been considering and negotiating in the European Commission since last December 2020 when it was made known, thereby giving rise to is about to be approvedhaving as its main objective the cessation of any type of unfair commercial practice within large technology companies.
In this way, with this law it is intended give greater opportunities to small and medium enterprises so that the technological giants do not end up monopolizing all the market shares. That is why below you will be able to know everything related to this new lawas well as the different ways in which you can affect the video game industry.
Who is affected by this new Digital Market Law?
First of all, it should be clarified that This is a law in the process of being approved.Therefore, the effects included in this legislation are not currently applicable. In fact, once approved, it will have to be promulgated and published, and some time must pass before it becomes applicable (in Spain, for example, the term is 20 days according to article 2.1 of the Civil Code), unless it is a direct application standardbeing the exception to the Article mentioned.
On the other hand, it should be noted that won’t affect all tech companiessince it will only be applied to those that have a market capital of more than 75,000 million euros and that involve a basic platform service, such as social networks and search engines.
To this should be added that messaging services and browsers that have at least 45 million end users monthly in the European Union and 10,000 commercial users annually. In this way, this could mainly affect Google, Amazon, Facebook (Meta), Apple, Microsoftamong other giants.
Regarding the video game industry, it is not clear if it affects PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox and to the different services that their companies offer when applied within the European market, although, if we take into account the capitalization and the number of users, there is this possibility. In fact, it will affect Google Play and the Apple Store, so their digital stores may also have to comply with this regulation.
What are the possible effects of this law?
It has to be said that the objective of the Digital Markets Law is to put an end to any type of abuse of power by these large technology companies through a series of measures that allow the small ones to gain a foothold in the market. Thus, The possible effects of this Law imply:
- The interoperability of messaging services, so that they will not be limited to those of large companies.
- Allow the consumer to freely choose the browser, search engine or virtual assistant.
- In the specific case of Apple, it must allow applications outside the App Store to be downloaded in Europe. This is something that may affect the PlayStation Store and Xbox Stores, as it also means alternative purchase methods can be used.
- Any type of breach of the law will be accompanied by a series of sanctions and prohibitions on acquisitions.
- Small companies can access data collected by large companies when using their platforms.
- Large companies are prohibited from collecting non-public data from small companies.
- Uninstall blocked apps will be allowed. The case that best applies to this is Facebook, which comes by default on many mobiles without options to unlock.
What happens if a company fails to comply with this Digital Markets Law?
As with the vast majority of laws, non-compliance entails a sanctionbeing so that in this case they will be imposed fines of up to 10% of turnover in the period of a year and worldwide, as well as coercive fines of 5% of daily billing.
All this taking into account that investigations will be carried out that would imply access the database of these companies as long as it is requested by the European Commission.
Related topics: Multi platform
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