Digital Markets Act Interoperability Cluedo
Who killed broad #interoperability requirements in the @EU_Commission #DigitalMarketsAct? Compare the Sept. 2020 leak with the final version. I’m guessing it was Colonel Zuckerberg, in the Berlaymont, but I really cannot figure out HOW ? I, of course, am Inspector Brown ??♂️
If this was US politics my default assumption would be the weapon of choice was that old favourite, the Campaign Contribution. But fortunately, EU politics is much less corrupt ?
Other suspects:
- ?? Ms Startup, who dreams of being a gatekeeper herself one day, and anyway dislikes all forms of government regulation. Ably assisted by the SMEAssociationLargelyFundedByBigTech AISB.
- ? Mr EUBigNonTech, who hates any form of competition regulation that might affect his non-tech business now (or when it goes digital). (See the disappearance of the New Competition Tool, widely suspected to be at the hands of Ms BigRetail and Mx Bell, below.)
- ??? M EuropeanIndustryChampion (believed to have good connections to the Single Market Commissioner), who wants future European gatekeepers to have free rein.
- ??? Professor ConservativeCompetitionEconomist, who tuts at any suggestion of this overly interventionist measure ?
- ☎️ Mx Bell, the national telephone monopoly, who hates the NCT with a passion. While they might benefit from OTT (over the top, in several ways) competitors being regulated, they don’t want to be affected either.
The DMA leak contains the following #interoperability provisions:
“20. Gatekeepers shall take appropriate + reasonable tech + contractual measures to enable the biz users and consumers of their platform or services to use any other platform or service by means of providing enhanced portability of personal or non-personal data or forms of #interoperability”
“27. Gatekeepers shall not refuse to interoperate/access for 3rd-party ancillary services at the request of its biz users or 3rd party service providers where the gatekeeper provides ancillary services to its online intermediation services (e.g. data analysis services, delivery, payments, etc.)”
“28. Gatekeepers shall not discriminate in providing interconnection between their service and other services, or in the interoperability between their service and related services.”
“29. Gatekeepers shall not through misleading technical or commercial means discourage customers [of its business users] from replacing services of these business users with their own.”
Compare with #DMA Art. 6(1):
“(f) allow business users and providers of ancillary services access to and interoperability with the same operating system, hardware or software features that are available or used in the provision by the gatekeeper of any ancillary services”
We are therefore depending on the efforts of the European Parliament and Council to reverse this callous murder in the final Regulation!
UPDATE: Here is our discussion on 29 March of this and other hot interoperability topics!
