99-470: The Digital Markets Act ( DMA ) is an EU regulation that aims to make the digital economy fairer and more contestable. The regulation entered into force on 1 November 2022 and became applicable, for the most part, on 2 May 2023. The DMA aims at ensuring a higher degree of competition in European digital markets by preventing large companies from abusing their market power and by allowing new players to enter
198-519: A bundling practice, it prevents gatekeepers from forcing business users to use the ID of the Core Platform Services when they offer their services. Thus, it is often related to advertisers or publishers issues such as Google and their methods of collecting data. (f) Prevents the bundling of different CPSs of the platform that are identified as gatekeeper. For this bundling practice, in 2018, Google
297-465: A data protection officer (DPO), who is responsible for managing compliance with the GDPR. Data controllers must report data breaches to national supervisory authorities within 72 hours if they have an adverse effect on user privacy. In some cases, violators of the GDPR may be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever
396-720: A mutual legal assistance treaty in force between the requesting third (non-EU) country and the EU or a member state. The data protection reform package also includes a separate Data Protection Directive for the police and criminal justice sector that provides rules on personal data exchanges at State level , Union level, and international levels. A single set of rules applies to all EU member states. Each member state establishes an independent supervisory authority (SA) to hear and investigate complaints, sanction administrative offences, etc. SAs in each member state co-operate with other SAs, providing mutual assistance and organising joint operations. If
495-537: A portable copy of the stored data , their right to erasure of their data under certain circumstances , their right to contest any automated decision-making that was made on a solely algorithmic basis, and their right to file complaints with a Data Protection Authority . As such, the data subject must also be provided with contact details for the data controller and their designated data protection officer, where applicable. Data protection impact assessments ( Article 35 ) have to be conducted when specific risks occur to
594-477: A DPO, although there is overlap in responsibilities that suggest that this role can also be held by the designated DPO. Article 42 and 43 of the GDPR set the legal basis for formal GDPR certifications. They set the basis for two categories of certifications: According to Art. 42 GDPR, the purpose of this certification is to demonstrate “compliance with the GDPR of processing operations by controllers and processors”. There are over 70 references to certification in
693-620: A EU Commission market investigation, iPadOS has been deemed a gatekeeper core platform service for posing an "important gateway for business users to reach end users". Other services that were under investigation include Microsoft's Bing , Edge and Microsoft Advertising ; and Apple's iMessage . On February 13, 2024, the European Commission announced their decision that Bing, Edge, Microsoft Advertising and iMessage don't qualify as gatekeeper services. The European Commission didn't go into detail on their decision other than stating that it
792-460: A business has multiple establishments in the EU, it must have a single SA as its "lead authority", based on the location of its "main establishment" where the main processing activities take place. The lead authority thus acts as a " one-stop shop " to supervise all the processing activities of that business throughout the EU. A European Data Protection Board (EDPB) co-ordinates the SAs. EDPB thus replaces
891-495: A case (f) if the legitimate interests of the controller are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject, which require protection of personal data (see also Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González ). Article 21 of the GDPR allows an individual to object to processing personal information for marketing or non-service related purposes. This means
990-649: A fair, transparent and predictable business environment for smaller businesses and traders on online platforms. This regulation has applied in July 2020 and prevents market distortion, encourages healthy competition and prohibits unfair practices. The Digital Markets Act proposal was submitted by the European Commission to the European Parliament and to the Council of the European Union on 15 December 2020. Along with
1089-440: A list of conducts that should be outlawed, on the one hand, and obligations that platforms identified as gatekeepers should respect, on the other hand. The list is divided in two different parts, the general blacklisted actions (Article 5) and the case by case assessment that needs to be specified (Article 6). The DMA combines quantitative and qualitative criteria in the process of designating gatekeepers. There are three criteria in
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#17328510809761188-411: A living data inventory of all data collected and stored on behalf of the organization. More details on the function and the role of data protection officer were given on 13 December 2016 (revised 5 April 2017) in a guideline document. Organisations based outside the EU must also appoint an EU-based person as a representative and point of contact for their GDPR obligations. This is a distinct role from
1287-400: A regulation comes into force, it overrides all national laws dealing with the same subject matter and subsequent national legislation must be consistent with and made in the light of the regulation. While member states are prohibited from obscuring the direct effect of regulations, it is common practice to pass legislation dealing with consequential matters arising from the coming into force of
1386-685: A regulation. Although a regulation in principle has a direct effect, the Belgian Constitutional Court has ruled that the international institutions, such as the EU, may not derogate from the national identity as set out in the political and constitutional basic structures of the country, or the core values of the protection of the Constitution. General Data Protection Regulation The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR , or French RGPD (for Règlement général sur la protection des données )
1485-450: A significant portion of transactions between consumers and businesses, leading to extreme dependencies of many businesses on these important platforms. In the table below, it can be observed that EU digital markets face a high level of concentration, with companies such as Google or Facebook controlling almost the entirety of a specific market segment. Apple Music and Amazon Music 25% Apple iOS 27% The term gatekeeper refers to
1584-405: A specific data subject without the use of additional information (as an alternative to the other option of complete data anonymisation ). An example is encryption , which renders the original data unintelligible in a process that cannot be reversed without access to the correct decryption key . The GDPR requires for the additional information (such as the decryption key) to be kept separately from
1683-423: A specific, freely given, plainly worded, and unambiguous affirmation given by the data subject; an online form which has consent options structured as an opt-out selected by default is a violation of the GDPR, as the consent is not unambiguously affirmed by the user. In addition, multiple types of processing may not be "bundled" together into a single affirmation prompt, as this is not specific to each use of data, and
1782-581: A third party. Also, it prevents end-users being signed-in to other services offered by the Gatekeepers. However, this can be done only if the choice has been presented to the end-user and consent given. Combining personal data from different sources was ruled illegal by the German Federal Cartel Office in 2019, in a case against Facebook. The company was also fined €110 million in May 2017 for notifying
1881-647: Is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law , in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union . It also governs the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA. The GDPR's goals are to enhance individuals' control and rights over their personal information and to simplify
1980-498: Is a general practice that does not come from the case law but it guarantees the right of business-users to raise possible concerns to public authorities (such as the European Commission). (e) refrain from requiring business users to use, offer or interoperate with an identification service of the gatekeeper in the context of services offered by the business users using the core platform services of that gatekeeper. Also known as
2079-576: Is also provisions to ensure the end user can remove any pre-installed software. Non-compliance may lead to sanctions, including fines of up to 10% of the worldwide turnover. According to the European Commission, the main objective of this regulation is to regulate the behaviour of the so-called "Big Tech" firms within the European Single Market and beyond. The Commission aims to guarantee a fair level of competition ("level playing field") on
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#17328510809762178-413: Is at least one legal basis for doing so. The other principles refer to "purpose limitation", " data minimisation ", "accuracy", "storage limitation", and "integrity and confidentiality". Article 6 states that the lawful purposes are: If informed consent is used as the lawful basis for processing, consent must have been explicit for data collected and each purpose data is used for. Consent must be
2277-529: Is being processed. A data controller must provide, upon request, an overview of the categories of data that are being processed as well as a copy of the actual data; furthermore, the data controller has to inform the data subject on details about the processing, such as the purposes of the processing, with whom the data is shared, and how it acquired the data. A data subject must be able to transfer personal data from one electronic processing system to and into another, without being prevented from doing so by
2376-526: Is carried out by a public authority (except for courts or independent judicial authorities when acting in their judicial capacity), or if processing operations involve regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects on a large scale, or if processing on a large scale of special categories of data and personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences ( Articles 9 and Article 10 ) a data protection officer (DPO)—a person with expert knowledge of data protection law and practices—must be designated to assist
2475-421: Is greater. To be able to demonstrate compliance with the GDPR, the data controller must implement measures that meet the principles of data protection by design and by default. Article 25 requires data protection measures to be designed into the development of business processes for products and services. Such measures include pseudonymising personal data, by the controller, as soon as possible (Recital 78). It
2574-408: Is kept hidden. Tokenisation does not alter the type or length of data, which means it can be processed by legacy systems such as databases that may be sensitive to data length and type. This also requires much fewer computational resources to process and less storage space in databases than traditionally encrypted data. Pseudonymisation is a privacy-enhancing technology and is recommended to reduce
2673-429: Is normally done in national legal systems. Regulations are in some sense equivalent to the legislative acts of the member states, in the sense that what they say is law and they do not need to be mediated into national law by means of implementing measures. As such, regulations constitute one of the most powerful forms of European Union law and a great deal of care is required in their drafting and formulation. When
2772-522: Is provided by Article 20 . A right to be forgotten was replaced by a more limited right of erasure in the version of the GDPR that was adopted by the European Parliament in March 2014. Article 17 provides that the data subject has the right to request erasure of personal data related to them on any one of a number of grounds, including noncompliance with Article 6(1) (lawfulness) that includes
2871-424: Is retained, if data is being transferred to a third-party and/or outside the EU, and any automated decision-making that is made on a solely algorithmic basis. Data subjects must be informed of their privacy rights under the GDPR, including their right to revoke consent to data processing at any time, their right to view their personal data and access an overview of how it is being processed , their right to obtain
2970-457: Is the best way to regulate AI. Article 82 of the GDPR stipulates that any person who has suffered material or non-material damage as a result of an infringement of this Regulation shall have the right to receive compensation from the controller or processor for the damage suffered. In the judgment Österreichische Post (C-300/21) the Court of Justice of the European Union gave an interpretation of
3069-422: Is the case, the concrete example that determined the commission to include them. This list comprises seven obligations and prohibitions for addressing the unfair trading practices. All the identified gatekeepers will have to respect these provisions: (a) Prevents Gatekeepers to combine personal data coming from Core Platforms Services (CPS) with data collected through other services of the same Gatekeepers or from
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3168-430: Is the responsibility and the liability of the data controller to implement effective measures and be able to demonstrate the compliance of processing activities even if the processing is carried out by a data processor on behalf of the controller (Recital 74). When data is collected, data subjects must be clearly informed about the extent of data collection, the legal basis for the processing of personal data, how long data
3267-550: The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. There are exceptions for data processed in an employment context or in national security that still might be subject to individual country regulations. Article 5 sets out six principles relating to the lawfulness of processing personal data. The first of these specifies that data must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. Article 6 develops this principle by specifying that personal data may not be processed unless there
3366-877: The Digital Services Act (DSA), the DMA is part of the Commission's European Digital Strategy entitled Shaping Europe's Digital Future . The proposals were presented by the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age , Margrethe Vestager , and by the European Commissioner for Internal Market , Thierry Breton , as members of the Von der Leyen Commission . On 23 November 2021,
3465-693: The Digital Services Act ). The description of regulations can be found in Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (formerly Article 249 TEC ). Article 288 To exercise the Union's competences, the institutions shall adopt regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions. A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. A directive shall be binding, as to
3564-499: The European Union which becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into national law . Regulations can be adopted by means of a variety of legislative procedures depending on their subject matter. Despite their name, Regulations are primary legislation rather than regulatory delegated legislation ; as such, they are often described as "Acts" (e.g.
3663-466: The Amazon Marketplace case that is under investigation by the European Commission. The Commission claimed that Amazon breached antitrust rules by using "non-public data" from their business users in order to compete with them. (b) To guarantee the possibility for end-users to uninstall pre-installed applications on its CPS. Regulation (European Union) A regulation is a legal act of
3762-533: The Commission that it would not be possible to combine data coming from Facebook and WhatsApp, at the time of the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014. However, the Commission found that this practice constituted a possibility since 2014, given the fact that WhatsApp inserted this option in its terms of services privacy policy in 2016. (b) allow business users to offer the same products or services to end-users through third party online intermediation services at prices or conditions that are different from those offered through
3861-647: The Council agreed its negotiating position, providing the Presidency with a mandate for the discussions. On 24 March 2022, the Parliament and the Council meeting in the trilogue format together with the Commission reached a political agreement on the DMA. The negotiators reached a consensus on the interoperability provisions for large messaging platforms: the said obligations will make it possible for users to communicate between different platforms, giving them more choice against
3960-536: The Council on 19 July 2022, and it was signed into law on 14 September 2022 by Presidents of the Parliament and the Council , which concluded the legislative procedure. The adopted text was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 12 October 2022, setting it to come into force twenty days after the publication, on 1 November 2022. The 2 May 2023, 6 months later, the regulation started applying and
4059-608: The DPO must be published by the processing organisation (for example, in a privacy notice) and registered with the supervisory authority. The DPO is similar to a compliance officer and is also expected to be proficient at managing IT processes, data security (including dealing with cyberattacks ) and other critical business continuity issues associated with the holding and processing of personal and sensitive data. The skill set required stretches beyond understanding legal compliance with data protection laws and regulations. The DPO must maintain
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4158-568: The EU in September 2023. These companies had until 6 March 2024 to comply with all of the Act's provisions. The list of obligations includes prohibitions on combining data collected from two different services belonging to the same company (e.g., in the case of Meta, its social network Facebook and its communication platform WhatsApp ); provisions for the protection of platforms' business users (including advertisers and publishers); legal instruments against
4257-438: The EU. The regulation does not apply to the processing of data by a person for a "purely personal or household activity and thus with no connection to a professional or commercial activity." (Recital 18). According to the European Commission , "Personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. If you cannot directly identify an individual from that information, then you need to consider whether
4356-466: The European Commission after consulting the gatekeepers concerned. (a) refrain from using, in competition with business users, any data not publicly available, which is generated through activities by those business users, including by the end users of these business users, of its core platform services or provided by those business users of its core platform services or by the end users of these business users The potential ban of this practice derives from
4455-648: The Europrivacy certification criteria were officially recognized by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to serve as European Data Protection Seal. Europrivacy was developed by the European research programme and is managed by the European Centre for Certification and Privacy (ECCP) in Luxembourg. Besides the definitions as a criminal offence according to national law following Article 83 GDPR
4554-573: The GDPR, encompassing various obligations such as: The GDPR certification also contributes to reduce the legal and financial risks of applicants, as well as of data controllers using certified data processing services. The adoption of the European Data Protection Seals is under the responsibility of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and is recognized across all EU and EEA Member States . In October 2022,
4653-585: The GDPR. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), adopted on 28 June 2018, has many similarities with the GDPR. The GDPR 2016 has eleven chapters, concerning general provisions, principles, rights of the data subject, duties of data controllers or processors, transfers of personal data to third countries, supervisory authorities, cooperation among member states, remedies, liability or penalties for breach of rights, and miscellaneous final provisions. Recital 4 proclaims that ‘processing of personal data should be designed to serve mankind’. The regulation applies if
4752-555: The Opinion of the Advocate General in the case Krankenversicherung Nordrhein (C-667/21). Data controllers must clearly disclose any data collection , declare the lawful basis and purpose for data processing, and state how long data is being retained and if it is being shared with any third parties or outside of the EEA. Firms have the obligation to protect data of employees and consumers to
4851-514: The Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) adopted its position on the DMA proposal, and the text was adopted in plenary session of the European Parliament on 15 December 2021. The approved text became the Parliament's mandate for negotiations with the Council, which started under the French presidency of the Council in the first half of 2022. On 25 November 2021,
4950-474: The ability of intermediary platforms to act as the main "bottleneck" to a large number of market participants, that are not reachable elsewhere. Behind this development are market forces that encompass (1) important economies of scale on the supply side; (2) strong direct and indirect network effects on the demand-side; (3) data-driven competitive advantage; (4) high rate of innovation; and (5) development of conglomerates that structure entire ecosystems. In addition,
5049-551: The basis for competition rules in the EU is established by Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 101 addresses anti-competitive agreements and concerted practices that may affect trade between members states or reduce competition in the common market. Article 102 aims to tackle the abuse of dominant positions. All players operating in the common market are therefore subject to these provisions. European and national authorities have identified
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#17328510809765148-550: The combination of these elements can lead to market dynamics that follow the "winner-takes-most" scenarios. During the last years, serious concerns have been expressed by authorities across the world with regard to the economic power of some digital giants. In Europe, the European Commission – backed by years of enforcement experience in EU competition law – has pointed out that a part of those intermediary platforms may be considered "Gatekeeper" or "structuring platforms" in their respective market segments. Moreover, it has also expressed
5247-429: The competition, and as harming the consumers, in the long run, through either increased prices or reduced options. Under EU competition law, reaching a "dominant position" is by no mean considered illegal, nor is the idea of a "winner takes most" scenario. However, practices that lock in dominant positions or that impose unfair conditions, terms to third parties might be treated as unlawful. The Digital Markets Act sets up
5346-409: The concern that Big Tech companies might unlawfully take advantage of their market and bargaining powers, in order to lock in dominant positions (i.e. in the existing markets), to increase their level of influence, and to obtain leading positions in new sectors of activity. Hence, this can be interpreted as providing unfair advantages to the incumbents present in core and ancillary services, as distorting
5445-522: The controller is providing and give them their options for how best to object to the processing of their data. There are instances the controller can refuse a request, in the circumstances that the objection request is "manifestly unfounded" or "excessive", so each case of objection must be looked at individually. Other countries such as Canada are also, following the GDPR, considering legislation to regulate automated decision making under privacy laws, even though there are policy questions as to whether this
5544-472: The controller or processor in monitoring their internal compliance with the Regulation. A designated DPO can be a current member of staff of a controller or processor, or the role can be outsourced to an external person or agency through a service contract. In any case, the processing body must make sure that there is no conflict of interest in other roles or interests that a DPO may hold. The contact details for
5643-671: The controller to make sure that the processing, throughout the whole processing lifecycle, complies with the regulation. Controllers shall also implement mechanisms to ensure that personal data is not processed unless necessary for each specific purpose. This is known as data minimisation. A report by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security elaborates on what needs to be done to achieve privacy and data protection by default. It specifies that encryption and decryption operations must be carried out locally, not by remote service, because both keys and data must remain in
5742-434: The controller without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach. However, the notice to data subjects is not required if the data controller has implemented appropriate technical and organisational protection measures that render the personal data unintelligible to any person who is not authorised to access it, such as encryption. Article 37 requires appointment of a data protection officer. If processing
5841-405: The core platform service, and to conclude contracts with these end users regardless of whether for that purpose they use the core platform services of the gatekeeper or not, allow end users to access and use, through the core platform services of the gatekeeper, content, subscriptions, features or other items by using the software application of a business user, where these items have been acquired by
5940-485: The creative sector. Another relevant achievement can be considered the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016. This regulation sets out the new European framework for the use and circulation of personal data and has a significant impact on the major digital players. In addition, the regulation on platform-to-business trading practices (P2B) has been established to create
6039-447: The data controller (an organisation that collects information about living people, whether they are in the EU or not), or processor (an organisation that processes data on behalf of a data controller like cloud service providers), or the data subject (person) is based in the EU. Under certain circumstances, the regulation also applies to organisations based outside the EU if they collect or process personal data of individuals located inside
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#17328510809766138-428: The data controller is under a legal obligation to notify the supervisory authority without undue delay unless the breach is unlikely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of the individuals. There is a maximum of 72 hours after becoming aware of the data breach to make the report. Individuals have to be notified if a high risk of an adverse impact is determined. In addition, the data processor will have to notify
6237-417: The data controller must allow an individual the right to stop or prevent controller from processing their personal data. There are some instances where this objection does not apply. For example, if: GDPR is also clear that the data controller must inform individuals of their right to object from the first communication the controller has with them. This should be clear and separate from any other information
6336-399: The data controller to provide information to the "data subject in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language, in particular for any information addressed specifically to a child." The right of access ( Article 15 ) is a data subject right. It gives people the right to access their personal data and information about how this personal data
6435-415: The data controller. Data that has been sufficiently anonymised is excluded, but data that has been only de-identified but remains possible to link to the individual in question, such as by providing the relevant identifier, is not. In practice, however, providing such identifiers can be challenging, such as in the case of Apple's Siri , where voice and transcript data is stored with a personal identifier that
6534-413: The data protection principles. Business processes that handle personal data must be designed and built with consideration of the principles and provide safeguards to protect data (for example, using pseudonymization or full anonymization where appropriate). Data controllers must design information systems with privacy in mind. For instance, using the highest-possible privacy settings by default, so that
6633-433: The datasets are not publicly available by default and cannot be used to identify a subject. No personal data may be processed unless this processing is done under one of the six lawful bases specified by the regulation ( consent , contract, public task, vital interest, legitimate interest or legal requirement). When the processing is based on consent the data subject has the right to revoke it at any time. Article 33 states
6732-604: The degree where only the necessary data is extracted with minimum interference with data privacy from employees, consumers, or third parties. Firms should have internal controls and regulations for various departments such as audit, internal controls, and operations. Data subjects have the right to request a portable copy of the data collected by a controller in a common format, as well as the right to have their data erased under certain circumstances. Public authorities, and businesses whose core activities consist of regular or systematic processing of personal data, are required to employ
6831-556: The end users from the relevant business user without using the core platform services of the gatekeeper The legal character of this kind of practices is currently investigated by the European Commission in a case concerning the App Store of Apple and the 30% commission that they charged to all the subscriptions made through the App Store. (d) refrain from preventing or restricting business users from raising issues with any relevant public authority relating to any practice of gatekeepers This
6930-491: The first month after the regulations were implemented, independent browsers had seen a spike in users. The Cyprus -based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250% in March. Norway -based Vivaldi , Germany -based Ecosia and United States -based Brave have also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation. The present rules applied within the European Union with regard to digital markets are derived from European and national legislation. Under these circumstances,
7029-573: The highly concentrated digital European markets, which are often characterised by a "winner takes all" configuration. The DMA covers eight different sectors, which it refers to as Core Platforms Services (CPS). Due to the presence of gatekeepers who, to a certain degree, affect the market contestability, the CPS are considered problematic by the European Commission: In April 2024, Reuters reported on data from six companies which showed that in
7128-449: The increasing dominance of certain companies. The choice is expanded also through provisions that guarantee users’ free choice as regards browsers, virtual assistants or search engines, while no interoperability obligation for social networks has been decided upon yet. In the political agreement, platforms with a market capitalization of €75 billion or turnover in the European Economic Area equal to or above €7.5 billion have been included in
7227-416: The individual is still identifiable. You should take into account the information you are processing together with all the means reasonably likely to be used by either you or any other person to identify that individual." The precise definitions of terms such as "personal data", "processing", "data subject", "controller", and "processor" are stated in Article 4 . The regulation does not purport to apply to
7326-445: The individual permissions are not freely given. (Recital 32). Data subjects must be allowed to withdraw this consent at any time, and the process of doing so must not be harder than it was to opt in. A data controller may not refuse service to users who decline consent to processing that is not strictly necessary in order to use the service. Consent for children, defined in the regulation as being less than 16 years old (although with
7425-453: The legislation: The DMA covers eight different sectors, also known as Core Platforms Services (CPS). The European Commission considers them problematic because the Gatekeepers' presence prevents market contestability to a certain extent. As of September 2023, the designated Gatekeepers and their services are: Apple's iPadOS was initially excluded from the list, as it does not meet the required quantitative thresholds. In April 2024, following
7524-440: The manufacturer restricts access to, or in online behavioural targeting, which relies heavily on device fingerprints that can be challenging to capture, send, and verify. Both data being 'provided' by the data subject and data being 'observed', such as about behaviour, are included. In addition, the data must be provided by the controller in a structured and commonly used standard electronic format. The right to data portability
7623-461: The market. In December 2020, the European Commission released a legislative proposal that intends to protect consumer welfare and to restore a level playing field in the European Union's digital market. At the moment, the economy is being driven to a large extent by the activities conducted through online platforms. A small number of online platforms have come to play a crucial role in the lives of millions of individuals and companies. They intermediate
7722-495: The market. This regulation targets the largest digital platforms operating in the European Union. They are also known as "gatekeepers" due to the "durable" market position in some digital sectors and because they also meet certain criteria related to the number of users, their turnovers, or capitalisation. Twenty-two services across six companies (deemed "gatekeepers") – Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , ByteDance , Meta , and Microsoft – were identified as "core platform services" by
7821-594: The need of transposition . However, it also provides flexibility for individual member states to modify (derogate from) some of its provisions. As an example of the Brussels effect , the regulation became a model for many other laws around the world, including in Brazil, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. After leaving the European Union the United Kingdom enacted its "UK GDPR", identical to
7920-544: The need to strengthen the current legislation, given the structural problems that are not covered. The Digital Markets Act is in line with the legislative developments undertaken by the Juncker Commission between 2014 and 2019. One of the most important pieces of EU digital legislation is represented by the EU copyright rules. This has led to the protection, payment, and recognition of workers in thirty-three sectors and it aims to reward creativity, stimulate investment in
8019-545: The online intermediation services of the Gatekeeper. This has already been considered illegal in a competition law-case concerning Amazon e-books. In its contracts with the publishers of E-books, Amazon required them to offer at least the best price or conditions that they proposed to any other competitors. This article also derives from the cases concerning online travel agencies such as Booking.com or Expedia . (c) allow business users to promote offers to end users acquired via
8118-479: The option for member states to individually make it as low as 13 years old, must be given by the child's parent or custodian, and verifiable. If consent to processing was already provided under the Data Protection Directive, a data controller does not have to re-obtain consent if the processing is documented and obtained in compliance with the GDPR's requirements (Recital 171). Article 12 requires
8217-399: The personal data of an EU person, regardless of whether the data resides in or out of the EU. Article 48 states that any judgement of a court or tribunal and any decision of an administrative authority of a third country requiring a controller or processor to transfer or disclose personal data may not be recognised or enforceable in any manner unless based on an international agreement, like
8316-736: The potential gatekeepers had 2 months to report to the commission to be identified as gatekeepers. This process would take up to 45 days and after being identified as gatekeepers, they would have 6 months to come into compliance, at the latest the 6 March 2024. From 7 March 2024, gatekeepers must comply with the DMA. The DMA specifically targets Big Tech companies. The DMA proposed to classify certain platforms, according to their number of users, capitalisation, market power or turnover, probably including Apple , Google , Facebook and Amazon as "Gatekeepers" making them subject to new obligations. It aims at preventing large companies from abusing their market power and to allow smaller and new players to enter
8415-409: The power of the data owner if any privacy is to be achieved. The report specifies that outsourced data storage on remote clouds is practical and relatively safe if only the data owner, not the cloud service, holds the decryption keys. According to the GDPR, pseudonymisation is a required process for stored data that transforms personal data in such a way that the resulting data cannot be attributed to
8514-492: The price paid by the advertiser and publisher, as well as the amount or remuneration paid to the publisher, for the publishing of a given ad and for each of the relevant advertising services provided by the gatekeeper This last obligation is linked to the investigation of the European Commission on Google's data and advertising practices. Article 6 of the DMA contains a second list of eleven obligations and prohibitions for gatekeepers. These obligations are specified individually by
8613-442: The processing of personal data for national security activities or law enforcement of the EU; however, industry groups concerned about facing a potential conflict of laws have questioned whether Article 48 could be invoked to seek to prevent a data controller subject to a third country's laws from complying with a legal order from that country's law enforcement, judicial, or national security authorities to disclose to such authorities
8712-433: The processor and, where applicable, the controller's or the processor's representative, shall make the record available to the supervisory authority on request. Records of controller shall contain all of the following information: Records of processor shall contain all of the following information: Controllers and processors of personal data must put in place appropriate technical and organizational measures to implement
8811-417: The pseudonymised data. Another example of pseudonymisation is tokenisation , which is a non-mathematical approach to protecting data at rest that replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive substitutes, referred to as tokens. While the tokens have no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value, they allow for specific data to be fully or partially visible for processing and analytics while sensitive information
8910-472: The regulations for international business . It supersedes the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and, among other things, simplifies the terminology. The European Parliament and Council of the European Union adopted the GDPR on 14 April 2016, to become effective on 25 May 2018. As an EU regulation (instead of a directive ), GDPR is directly applicable with force of law on its own without
9009-616: The result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods. A decision shall be binding in its entirety upon those to whom it is addressed. Recommendations and opinions shall have no binding force. The Council can delegate legislative authority to the Commission and, depending on the area and the appropriate legislative procedure, both institutions can make laws. There are Council regulations and Commission regulations. Article 288 does not clearly distinguish between legislative acts and administrative acts, as
9108-517: The right to compensation. Article 82(1) GDPR requires for the award of damages (i) an infringement of the GDPR, (ii) (actual) damage suffered and (iii) a causal link between the infringement and the damage suffered. It is not necessary that the damage suffered reaches a certain degree of seriousness. There is no European defined concept of damage. Compensation is determined nationally in accordance with national law. The principles of equivalence and effectiveness must be taken into account. See also
9207-414: The rights and freedoms of data subjects. Risk assessment and mitigation is required and prior approval of the data protection authorities is required for high risks. Article 25 requires data protection to be designed into the development of business processes for products and services. Privacy settings must therefore be set at a high level by default, and technical and procedural measures shall be taken by
9306-399: The risks to the concerned data subjects and also to help controllers and processors to meet their data protection obligations (Recital 28). According to Article 30 records of processing activities have to be maintained by each organisation matching one of following criteria: Such requirements may be modified by each EU country. The records shall be in electronic form and the controller or
9405-418: The rules’ scope. An agreement was reached for penalties, which will be amounting from 10% of annual worldwide turnover due to non-compliance for first infringements up to 20% in the case of repeated infringements. The text of the DMA provisionally agreed in March 2022 was made publicly available by the European institutions only on 22 May 2022. The DMA was formally adopted by the Parliament on 5 July 2022 and by
9504-425: The self-preferencing methods used by platforms for promoting their own products (e.g., preferential results for Google's products or services when using Google Search ); provisions concerning the pre-installation of some services (e.g., Android ); provisions related to bundling practices; and provisions for ensuring interoperability , portability , and access to data for businesses and end-users of platforms. There
9603-518: Was based, in part, on an article by the Financial Times from September 2023 that reported that both Microsoft and Apple made appeals on the grounds that there wasn't a big enough user base in Europe for the services under review. The Financial Times received this information from two sources with direct knowledge on the matter. The two following sections detail each rule individually and mention, when it
9702-431: Was fined with €4.3 billion by the Commission in a decision on Android. The company breached the antitrust rules of the EU by forcing Android's users to pre-install its own services, such as Google search and Google Chrome. This way, Google secured its dominant position in terms of internet search. (g) provide advertisers and publishers to which it supplies advertising services, upon their request, with information concerning
9801-495: Was the result of "a thorough assessment of all arguments, taking into account input by relevant stakeholders, and after hearing the Digital Markets Advisory Committee." Despite the lack of detail provided by the European Commission on their decision, multiple outlets speculated that the decision was based on the services not meeting the threshold necessary to be classified as a gatekeeper service. This speculation
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