The European consumer association BEUC believes that Meta, Apple and Google still need to improve their platforms’ third-party compatibility to meet the requirements of the Digital Marketplace Act.
According to a report by the European Consumer Association BEUC, major platforms still have work to do to comply with the EU’s main regulation on digital markets, the Digital Marketplace Act (DMA).
While acknowledging that they have taken some steps to comply with the new rules, BEUC calls on the European Commission to address several obstacles that remain on the way to opening up platform ecosystems to consumers.
“Interoperability is a key factor for market opening,” BEUC competition policy officer Sebastien Plant told Euronews. He added that “there have been some improvements on the part of the big platforms, but we are not there yet, although the DMA is necessary to give consumers more and better choice.”
The DMA agreement, which will come into force in 2023, provides for an obligation for designated gatekeeper platforms, due to their size and dominance in the digital market, to make their systems interoperable with other businesses.
The BEUC believes that in order to assess full compliance with the Meta DMA when it comes to WhatsApp and Messenger’s interoperability with third-party instant messaging services, the company must conduct real-world testing on users to see if they can effectively “make a genuine informed choice about interoperability.”
The report says that Apple users can change their default browsers and apps, as well as more easily uninstall apps on their Apple devices. However, the BEUC notes that the company should also provide users with the ability to set a third-party app as the default app in one step, with one click.
The report also recommends making the user’s path clearer for uninstalling Apple apps and showing a browser selection screen immediately after an iOS update.
Since the DMA does not allow platforms to treat their services and products more favorably than similar services, BEUC has asked Google to open up its search results pages more to other vertical search services so that other companies have a “fair” chance to compete.
In June, the EU enforcement agency found that Apple’s App Store prevents app developers from freely directing consumers to alternative channels for obtaining content. A week later, Meta was again in the spotlight for offering a “pay or opt-in” offer to Facebook and Instagram users that forces them to either pay or give up their data to use the service. The Commission has sent its preliminary findings to the platform and will complete the investigation by March 2025.
The Commission has also launched an investigation against Google over concerns that the company favors its vertical search services over those of competitors.
Platforms that violate the DMA can be fined up to 10% of the company’s total global turnover.
