Remember Statler and Waldorf? The grumpy old Muppets were always complaining from their balcony, never satisfied with the performances on stage.  European regulators enforcing the new Digital Markets Act are about to learn that the complainant companies who lobbied for the law — Yelp, Spotify, Epic Games, Booking.com, and others — will, like Statler and Waldorf, never be satisfied with its implementation.  

This dissatisfaction underlines fundamental contradictions in the DMA. Instead of helping consumers, it aims to help competitors. The DMA is making large tech firms’ services less useful, less secure, less family-friendly, and less useful. Europeans’ experience of large tech firms’ services is about to get worse compared to the experience of Americans and other non-Europeans. 

The US Congress rejected two bills — the American Innovation Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act — that would have blocked large tech firms’ companies from offering vertically integrated services (such as Amazon Prime, Google Maps in search results, and the iOS App Store).  

ABut at the same time, Europe went in the opposite direction, adopting their bill with a similar mandate. The DMA designates six “gatekeeper” tech companies — five American and one Chinese — and 22 “core platforms” from those companies. These services must turn off any vertical integration with other company services and must enable interoperability from competing services.  

European citizens didn’t clamor for change — it was “middleman” services that hoped to get better placement on iPhones and Android devices, in app stores, or in Google search results.  

Content aggregators such as Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Booking.com. Big app makers Spotify, Epic Games, and Match.com. Rival search engines Ecosia, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo. EU regulators are open about the DMA’s aim: not to help consumers, but to help “pawns” become “kings.” 

In a normal law enforcement or regulatory environment, regulators would assess each company’s compliance based on the letter of the law. But that is not happening. Instead, regulators are going to judge DMA compliance by inviting these same complainants to share their opinions on large tech platforms’ compliance plans. During the week of March 18, they are organizing “workshops” where complainants can come and, well, complain. 

EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager already has expressed “reservations as to whether or not we will have full compliance.” But Vestager has also set up a system where “compliance” is determined by the complainants’ happiness — and she should know from past cases that their happiness will never come. Consider a few examples:  

• Search Engines: Under the DMA, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android must present consumers with a “choice screen” to give more visibility to rival search engines: Despite this, the CEO of small search engine Ecosia fears the rules risk leaving his company worse off because Google is still able to offer its services alongside less familiar alternatives. By Ecosia’s measure, the DMA-mandated choice screens will only be successful if Google search is excluded and Ecosia’s market share dramatically increases.  
   
• Search Results: The DMA requires Google to provide more prominent links to middleman sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com. These mandatory changes make it harder for consumers to get a quick answer. An early analysis found that consumers are not clicking on the new mandatory links to Yelp and TripAdvisor. Yelp immediately began complaining that the DMA-mandated changes were a failure because they didn’t result in guaranteed traffic to Yelp. And they’ve called on the European Commission to open an investigation and force a redesign of Google’s search page. 
   
• App Stores: The DMA requires Apple to allow rival app stores on iPhones. But the DMA also states that privacy and security are important, so Apple has announced that it will charge a 50 eurocent fee for each iOS app downloaded through third-party app stores — to support app “notarization.” Spotify — which has agitated for years against Apple’s fees — complained that Apple’s changes are “utterly at odds with the very purpose of the DMA.” So what would Spotify prefer? A redesign of the App Store’s business — and presumably a world where Apple is forbidden from charging any commission. 

• Cookie Pop-Ups: Right now, users of Instagram, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook Marketplace see those services interoperate smoothly with each other. But the DMA requires that Meta bombard users with pop-ups, verifying that they prefer continued integration over fully separate services. Consumers will jump through a new hoop for little benefit. 

The new law degrades the quality of large tech firms’ products used by millions of Europeans — removing useful features, reducing security, unleashing spam and hate, undermining parental controls, and making services harder to use. Again, consider a few examples:  

• Threatening Security: The DMA is forcing Apple to allow the “sideloading” of apps onto iPhones without going through App Store review. Apple has highlighted repeatedly that this mandate will threaten the security and privacy of iPhone users, by giving malicious actors more pathways into users’ phones. Although the EU largely brushed off Apple’s concerns during the debate on the DMA, a new white paper from Apple reveals that government agencies, both in the EU and outside of it “have reached out to us about these new changes, seeking assurances that they will have the ability to prevent government employees from sideloading apps onto government-purchased iPhones.” 
   
• Undermining Content Moderation: In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, Apple removed the right-wing app Parler from its App Store, given the app’s role in helping plan the attack. Policymakers routinely call on Apple and Google to remove apps from their app stores. The EU’s Digital Services Act requires timely attention to content moderation flags. And yet, the DMA chucks app store content moderation overboard, by allowing access to any alternative app store — regardless of whether they have any content moderation at all. As Apple notes, the DMA will create a free-for-all for hate, hoax, and adult apps, newly free to evade Apple’s previous app store content policies. 

• Degrading Parent Controls: Apple’s “Ask To Buy” feature allows parents to decide which apps their kids download from the App Store. Before the DMA, all iPhone apps were required to be purchased through the App Store, ensuring that teens or kids couldn’t evade the “Ask to Buy” feature (and their parent’s supervision) by sideloading an app. But as Apple notes in its white paper, the DMA is forcing Apple to allow alternative app stores onto iOS — and those stores won’t necessarily include parental controls. 

The European Commission will soon find that its DMA is built upon a no-win trap: forcing changes that hurt consumers to help middleman companies — only to find that those middlemen will never, ever be happy. 

Adam Kovacevich is CEO and Founder of the Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org), a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. He has worked at the intersection of tech, transportation, and politics for 20 years, leading public policy at Google and Lime and serving as a Democratic Hill aide. 

Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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