According to the agreement approved by the Regional Market Committee of the European Parliament, the EU is stepping up legislation to strictly regulate companies such as apple, formulate plans to force similar "gatekeepers" to open the right to use hardware and software, and even set up an internal department to meet the new rules Earlier this week, EU governments reached a provisional agreement on the digital market law (DMA), with 43 votes in favour, 1 against and 1 abstention, indicating that European legislators have reached a broad consensus on actively regulating large technology companies.
DMA may force apple to make significant changes to app store, information, FaceTime, third-party browser restriction policy and Siri in Europe. For example, it may be forced to allow users to install third-party app stores and side loading apps, allowing developers to work closely with Apple's own services, promote their products outside the app store, use third-party payment systems, and access data collected by apple.
One of the recent additions to DMA is the requirement for interoperability of information, voice and video call services. Interoperability rules theoretically mean that meta applications such as WhatsApp or messenger can require interoperability with Apple's IMessage framework. After the legislation is completed, Apple will be forced to comply.
The latest interim agreement stipulates the plan to establish a "high-level group" of digital regulators in Central Europe to coordinate the national regulators of EU Member States and require the "gatekeeper" to create an independent "compliance function". The new team must include compliance officers, with sufficient power, resources and access to management to monitor their companies' compliance with EU legislation, and be "led by independent senior managers with unique responsibility for the compliance function". The rule would effectively require companies like apple to set up an internal department dedicated to meeting Pro competition regulations.
In addition, the new rules are specifically aimed at "dual role" companies like apple, which have control over both hardware and software. It seems that any developer can obtain any existing hardware functions, such as "near-field communication technology, security components and processors, authentication mechanism and software used to control these technologies." This may have a significant impact on the level of non integrated payment services allowed by Apple for example And apple watch, just like apple pay.
DMA was provisionally approved by EU lawmakers in March. Next, these proposals will be put to a final vote in the European Parliament in July, and then officially adopted by the European Council and published in the EU official gazette. DMA will take effect 20 days after the announcement, and the affected companies will have six months to comply.
In addition to the European Union, Apple's ecosystem is increasingly under strict scrutiny by governments around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Global regulators obviously want to explore the requirements around application side loading and interoperability.