EU law forces digital giants: Big change planned for WhatsApp – it affects all users

Created: 03/29/2022, 14:41

By: Ines Baur

Threema with WhatsApp, WhatsApp with Signal, everyone with everyone - soon everyone will be able to chat with everyone else?

© IMAGO/La Nacion

WhatsApp, Threema & Co: Will users soon be able to chat with each other between the different platforms?

An EU law gives smaller companies advantages.  

Brussels - It's been more than 20 years since the EU issued comprehensive rules for the Internet.

Google had just been founded, Amazon mainly sold books, Facebook only came into being years later.

Problems such as hate speech on the Internet did not exist.

Nobody thought of the cross-border power of some tech giants.

In the meantime, things are often quite turbulent and unfair on the Internet.

The EU wants to change that and has agreed on a new law for the comprehensive regulation of large Internet companies: the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Consumer advocates speak of a milestone for users and smaller companies.

"All in all, the DMA strengthens competitors, leads to more innovations, lower prices and increases the freedom of choice for consumers," said Jutta Gurkmann from the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations.

"It was long overdue and will have a positive impact on people's everyday lives."

WhatsApp, Google and Co.: New EU law is intended to limit the market power of the digital giants

The laws and rules in Europe are no longer up to the realities of the digital world.

That was the impression after the EU Commission had proposed a large digital package in December 2020.

Alongside the Digital Markets Act comes the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The DMA is intended to limit the market power of digital giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon.

New EU law provides obligation for WhatsApp

Own products and offers may no longer be treated preferentially over those of the competition.

In addition, large companies, for example, may only merge data from different sources in the future with the express user consent.

Also new is that messengers like WhatsApp are required to open up for communication with smaller services.

This does not automatically mean that Signal or Threema users can send messages to friends on WhatsApp.

Because it is up to the smaller companies to decide whether they want to open up.

It is more likely that new providers will come onto the market who will link their service to WhatsApp.

New EU law: In addition to Facebook, WhatsApp and Google, other companies are also affected

Andreas Schwab (CDU), who negotiated the DMA for Parliament, initially assumes that ten to 15 tech companies will fall under the DMA, including Alphabet, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

Central platform services should include search engines such as Google, mediation services such as Amazon Marketplace, social media such as Facebook, video platforms such as YouTube, messenger services such as WhatsApp, web browsers and voice assistants such as Amazon's Alexa.

EU law as an opportunity for start-ups - Google and Apple worried

The tech companies have tried to water down the DMA in their interests with massive lobbying.

The iPhone group Apple reacted to the deal with concern because some DMA regulations would create unnecessary data protection and security gaps for users.

"Other rules in the DMA will make it impossible for us to collect fees for intellectual property in which we invest heavily." ' for Europeans.

Christian Miele, chairman of the start-up association, spoke of a "decisive step towards more equal opportunities in the age of the platform economy".

Small startups would have more chances to become big themselves.

The Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) and the Media Association of the Free Press (MVFP) particularly welcomed "that powerful search engines and social networks are obliged to apply fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory access conditions for commercial users".

This is "a possibly historic step to protect the free press in the digital age".