Europe To Limit How Big Tech Can Push Its Own Services And Use Third Party Data

European lawmakers are taking aim at big tech’s ability to push its own services in search results at the expense of rivals, with Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager confirming today that a legislative proposal due in a few weeks will aim to ban what she called “unfair self-preferencing”. The concern is that so-called gatekeeper platforms have the ability to manipulate the way that they rank different businesses — and “show their own services more visibly than their rivals”, she said in a speech. The Commission is expected to propose a package of legislative measures next month to update long-standing EU ecommerce rules and propose new strictures for platforms with significant market power (aka gatekeepers) — making good on its earlier pledge to reboot digital regulation. In her speech to the EPC Digital Clearinghouse today, Vestager confirmed that the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) will be introduced in a few weeks’ time. The Commission is surely enjoying its timing, here, with grumblings of political discontent against big tech over the pond and the US Department of Justice having just filed an antitrust case against Google.