The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe) issued the following statement ahead of the 7 March 2024 compliance deadline for companies designated under the Digital Markets Act.
The following can be attributed to Senior Vice President and Head of CCIA Europe, Daniel Friedlaender:
“As of 7 March, tech companies designated as ‘gatekeepers’ under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) need to have changed the way they operate certain online services in Europe. These ‘core platform services’ now have to follow new DMA rules, including a long list of prohibitions and obligations that impact how services work and function.”
“After the deadline, there will be a period of legal uncertainty, as the European Commission needs to review each company’s compliance solutions in detail. This requires the Commission to act as a truly neutral DMA enforcer, regulators need to resist the urge to politicise the process.”
“For the DMA to be successful, enforcement and compliance assessment should be proportionate and unbiased, taking into account the significant differences between gatekeepers, as well as how these services work in reality.”
“One-size-fits-all DMA compliance solutions simply do not exist. The Commission must allow tech companies to still differentiate themselves from others. If not, online services might be forced to become more alike, or forced to abandon features that set them apart from their competitors.”
“Compliance needs to be seen as an ongoing process, requiring a continuous dialogue between the Commission, designated tech firms, and third parties.”
“Rules and theory aside, it remains unclear how exactly the DMA will affect the hundreds of millions of Europeans using digital services and products – because DMA implementation does come with various tradeoffs.”
“Indeed, we might see that consumers will suddenly receive product updates they don’t want, simply because of DMA compliance, or notice changes to their favourite services they really don’t like.”