How Europe's bold new rules for Big Tech could change the services you use

These are just some of the changes that could come about for consumers from new landmark legislation unveiled by European lawmakers last week that aims to bolster competition in online services. By imposing new regulations on technology platforms deemed to be dominant "gatekeepers," the Digital Markets Act (DMA) could result in sweeping changes to how EU citizens — and potentially consumers around the world — interact with major tech companies, including Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL GOOGLE) and Facebook parent company Meta (FB).

Regulators in several countries have proposed new rules to rein in Big Tech, but the EU proposal is among the most ambitious and may be the closest to becoming reality. According to Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the European Commission, the DMA could take effect as early as October, although it could be longer before consumers start to see changes as regulators determine which tech companies are covered by the law and the companies figure out how to implement the new rules.

"This is a very big deal, because this is the first strong, comprehensive set of regulations that's specific to market power in internet platforms," said Mitch Stoltz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group.

Even tech advocacy groups opposed to the DMA also agree that the legislation will result in major changes. "Many of the requirements force the Big Tech platforms to change their services in pretty significant ways," said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the Chamber of Progress, an industry organization backed by Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook's parent, Meta. And as with other proposed regulation targeting the industry, some tech groups also warn of unintended consequences from the DMA for companies and consumers.

While the legislation is clearly targeted at the dominance of US tech giants, it doesn't single out specific companies. Instead, the DMA creates a special category of "gatekeeper" businesses that are subject to greater regulation. It will cover platform providers who meet several benchmarks, including having more than 45 million monthly EU users and EU revenues of at least 7.5 billion euros or a market cap of at least 75 billion euros.

The regulations will apply only in Europe, but many policy experts expect that the ideas set forth in the DMA could eventually be enshrined into law worldwide, both because it sets expectations for regulators elsewhere and because tech companies could choose to adopt the changes more widely.

"We often see that it's easier for companies to implement a change globally than to just do it in one jurisdiction," said Charlotte Slaiman, competition policy director at Public Knowledge, a US-based consumer advocacy group. "There very well may be changes to US products that comply with the EU rule.

Here are some of the ways the rules may affect users in Europe, and possibly beyond.

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