Carlos Zorrinho (S&D, Portugal) will present his draft report for an opinion on fair and contestable markets in the digital sector (DMA) to the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee on Wednesday 1 September.
Acknowledging that the regulation must be “based on a constructive dialogue and avoid fragmentation of regulatory power”, the text calls for legislation to better take into account the consequences of the evolution of the Internet of Things in its definition (see EUROPE 12751/16).
The draft report also argues that gatekeepers - the cornerstone of the DMA (see EUROPE 12745/17) - should not be allowed to restrict user choice by using contractual standards that would impede users’ freedom and mobility between different services and applications.
Also in this chapter, the document proposes that gatekeepers should comply with a set of standards in order to avoid hegemony and “suffocation” in “an economic ecosystem in which SMEs play a fundamental role in wealth creation, innovation, employment and the development of territories”.
Finally, the report proposes to strengthen the ability of EU law to limit unfair practices and promote openness to competition by providing balanced competitive opportunities for app creators and small competing platforms.
Other sensitive issues are data protection and advertising. On this first point, the text puts forward the idea of monitoring the portability, access and transfer of data held by companies, in order to prevent abusive practices that could lead to monopolistic situations.
With regard to targeted advertising, there is also a question of strengthening the conditions for combating and prohibiting commercial tracking when users create online profiles.
See the draft report: https://bit.ly/3t2otHZ (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)