Legislators aim to give consumers more choice and smaller competitors more chance to grow
Legislators in Europe announced last week they had finalised the formulation of new rules aimed at limiting market dominance by big technology companies operating in the region. This comes in the form of the Digital Markets Act, which the legislators hope will break open the “walled gardens” enjoyed by a handful of giant companies, giving consumers more choice and smaller competitors more chance to thrive and grow.
It took the legislators just 16 months to reach this milestone, which sounds like ages if you’re going by tech development cycles but is remarkably swift in legal terms. It is also hoped that this act will reduce the need to try each anticompetitive claim via the courts. Apple has long lauded the safety of its single and official App Store, arguing that developers must meet stringent security and privacy criteria to offer their apps to iPhone users, but critics say it keeps competition locked out.
When you text using WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage — or on various other platforms — those messages and calls are typically protected with end-to-end encryption. Cross-pollinating the platforms would mean disrobing messages of that encryption armour. As Wired’s Matt Burgess explains: “[I]t’s not possible to send a message from one encrypted app to another. If you use Signal and your friends only use WhatsApp, someone has to compromise.”Interoperability’s promise sounds great.
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