Brussels focuses the bazooka on Big Tech
Digitization is increasingly prominent on the political agenda, with the EU leading the way worldwide. A result in the European Parliament on a mammoth package of legislation last week, future new rules for technology companies closer. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) defines the frameworks within which the largest European technology platforms may be based. And the Digital Services Act (DSA) quickly clarifies what responsibilities companies have when it comes to what can be posted and shared online.
Exactly one year after the announcement of this legislative duo by Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of the European Commission and the European Parliament, their position has already been established. The speed with which this has disappeared says a lot about the defined sense of urgency in Europe about the need to contain the disproportionate power of tech companies. The concerns of abuse of market power to damage democracy itself.
Never before have tech companies, which are expected to behave better under the upcoming laws, lobbied so hard. Together, Big Tech spends almost 100 million euros a year to influence EU policy. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple alone account for about 20 million of those. You can’t open a newspaper’s Twitter feed without seeing ads telling how much small and medium-sized businesses are benefiting from Facebook. Apparently advertising companies think that generates the most sympathy.
MEP Paul Tang (PvdA) took to Twitter boasting that the lobbying millions were fruitless: “Millions spent the past year tech whoppers lobbying European politics. Yet as a parliament we have not let ourselves be taken in by big money, but today we are voting on the European bazooka!”
That bazooka should keep more transparency about algorithms, mergers and acquisitions against the light and protect minors against targeted advertising. There should also be a ban on dark patterns, where social media users surreptitiously click on advertisements of a post about which they really don’t want to. The hope is also that by enforcing collaboration and standards, large tech platforms will offer more space to smaller providers, who can then better reach consumers.
French President Emmanuel Macron is impatiently waiting for France’s lines of the EU, to be finalized from January between Commission, Council and Parliament. His economics minister Bruno Le Maire recently said: “Digital giants are not just good with whom we work, they are rivals, rivals of the states, which our economic rules do not mean. That is why they need to be regulated.”
The Biden administration is less enthusiastic. Although US parliamentarians also advocate more transparent algorithms, stricter competition rules and more liability for large platforms via originals, Minister Gina Raimondo (Trade) warned last week about European rules that hit American companies disproportionately hard. You would almost forget that those companies are also disproportionately large and powerful.
The brand new Dutch coalition agreement contains proposals for an algorithm supervisor and promises to tackle “the market power of large tech and platform companies”. planned, an important step has already been taken in Brussels.
Marietje Schaake writes a column on technology, policy and economics here every other week.
A version of this article also in NRC in the morning of December 17, 2021