The Digital Markets Act: time for a reset
The Digital Markets Act (DMA), intended to create a more level playing field, is causing significant and unintended harm to European users and many of the small businesses it was meant to protect. This week we detailed these impacts in our response to the European Commission’s consultation on this new law and provided our thoughts on how to improve it.
Unintended consequences
Consider the DMA’s impact on Europe’s tourism industry. The DMA requires Google Search to stop showing useful travel results that link directly to airline and hotel sites, and instead show links to intermediary websites that charge for inclusion. This raises prices for consumers, reduces traffic to businesses, and makes it harder for people to quickly find reliable, direct booking information.
Key parts of the European tourism industry have already seen free, direct booking traffic from Google Search plummet by up to 30%. A recent study on the economic impact of the DMA estimates that European businesses across sectors could face revenue losses of up to €114 billion.
Favoring the few
We remain concerned that these changes to Search are a result of the DMA prioritizing the commercial interests of a small set of intermediary sites — who often shout the loudest in these debates — over the ability of most businesses to sell directly to their customers.
Beyond Search, the DMA is making it difficult to protect users from scams and malicious links on Android by forcing us to remove our legitimate safeguards that protect users’ security and safety. Unlike iOS, Android is open by design, meaning that users can download apps from other sources (known as “sideloading”). Plus, most devices come with multiple app stores pre-installed. This openness has benefited innovation and choice across Europe but is now under threat.
Competitiveness needs clarity
The DMA’s biggest challenge remains: How do we boost innovation and deliver cutting-edge products to Europe while navigating complex and untested new rules?
Regulatory burdens and uncertainty are delaying our launch of new products, like our latest AI features, by up to a year after they launch in the rest of the world. This delay hurts European consumers and businesses who deserve access to the latest and greatest technology.
Time for a reset
We have proactively made many changes to our products to comply with the DMA, including offering new opportunities like data portability tools for European businesses and developers. But we and other companies still face considerable uncertainty and unpredictability. This is compounded by overlapping rules from national regulators and cases before national courts that are increasingly undermining the DMA’s goal of creating harmonized, consistent rules across the EU.
We call on the Commission to ensure that future enforcement is user-driven, fact-based, consistent and clear. We should have a single-minded focus on benefitting European businesses and consumers and ensuring that they benefit from high-quality products and services. DMA compliance should improve digital markets, not come at the expense of security, integrity, quality or usefulness.
