Campaign groups say that if the EU allows Apple to get away with its response to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), then the law will become toothless.
Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta have taken the same approach to antitrust, the groups say: seek technical compliance while protecting their market dominance &# 8230;
Max von Thun is director of the Open Markets Institute, a group that aims to expose the dangers of big companies gaining too much power. He told The Verge that Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google are taking the same approach to DMA.
[Their proposals] are designed for superficial compliance. check the regulatory boxes without posing a real threat to the gatekeepers' market dominance […]
Major tech companies' DMA strategy is to make changes that would seem to open up their walled gardens, but in reality this is actually unworkable or unattractive for businesses and users.
This view is shared by Ian Penfrath, senior policy advisor at European Digital Rights (EDRi) – a non-profit an organization that seeks to prevent abuse of power. from businesses and governments.
None of the changes proposed by regulators “resulted in any meaningful changes in the power structures that help keep these companies are at the top.”
He specifically addressed Apple, saying that if the company was allowed to get away with its response, the law would effectively be lost.
Penfrath even called the changes “malicious,” saying they could actually make things much worse for developers trying to escape Apple's app store monopoly. “Under Apple's current proposal, it is unlikely that anyone will even try to challenge the gatekeeper's monopoly. It's just not worth it. If the EU Commission lets this pass, the DMA will be lost.”
The Bloomberg article echoes these views, arguing that Apple is on a collision course with the EU. We previously said that Apple's response would guarantee that the company would end up in court.
Photo by surasak_ch on Unsplash
