New Year is Here: EU’s Big Tech Shakeup Continues
Happy New Year, folks! I hope it brings you health, wealth, and prosperity. Once upon a time, the transition from the end of one year to the beginning of another was an opportunity to take stock—to look both back and forward simultaneously. Today, of course, amid post-festive hangovers and punishing self-improvement goals, our thoughts naturally gravitate towards tomorrow, and the same is true in the app economy. Indeed, with the fast pace of reform resulting from the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Bloc’s flagship antitrust legislation, this has never been truer, and last month was a fantastic example. While most people were focused on making it to the winter break, Apple and Google were wrangling with the EU over DMA compliance, and, as the Whitehouse prepares to change occupants, stark warnings were heard from across the pond. So before we all get stuck into 2025, let’s take a minute to check how 2024 ended.
Europe slices Apple
For mobile marketing, the most intriguing development in December was the storm brewing around Apple’s commitment to interoperability. In December, the EU’s DMA council made its preliminary proposals to Apple regarding interoperability. While I’ve discussed this previously in terms of messaging, the EU has gone further, requesting interoperability of connectivity features such as AirDrop, AirPlay, and other Bluetooth-based services.
Apple is naturally unhappy, and has already issued a white paper, “It’s Getting Personal,” warning how this demand will supposedly endanger user privacy. But it’s not just supranational legislators who are gunning for interoperability. As TechCrunch reports, Meta made 15 interoperability requests to the iPhone manufacturer in Europe in 2024 too. Moreover, some commentators are even arguing for making interoperability universal; something that, as the DMA rules stipulating that all telecommunication devices in Europe must now be sold with USB C chargers kicked in, seems less ambitious than it sounds.
Whatever the case, from an industry perspective, interoperability presents a wealth of opportunities to marketers by unifying platforms and audiences, and should therefore cautiously be encouraged.
Hotel California: European Travel Stuck in a Jam with Google
Next: Google. And an interesting case where the search engine giant might just have the moral upper hand.
As I’ve previously reported, Google has been experimenting with results for hotels by users searching in Germany, Estonia and Lithuania. Instead of providing these consumers an algorithmically enhanced list of options—one that is often influenced by factors such as the number of images associated with a location—Google offered a plain, unadorned “blue link” one instead. The result? Apparently, the old way of doing things seems to be better.
According to a survey Google conducted alongside this test, users were less satisfied with their search results, traffic to hotels and intermediary sites went down (with hotels losing the most traffic at more than 10 percent), and traffic to intermediary sites largely stayed flat.
What’s more, the travel industry has given the search engine giant its approval. Not only are KLM and Lufthansa in agreement over the positive impact of Google’s compliance with the DMA, Hotel Online also recently published this spirited critique of the DMA’s supposedly negative impact on hotel booking. Nevertheless, not everyone in the business is convinced. A group of more than 20 price comparison sites has called for the EU to do more to make Google DMA-compliant. So what’s the answer?
Well, Google is already pleading for the EU to take it easy with DMA compliance. But perhaps the point here is that “compromise” isn’t a dirty word. While the travel industry seems a far cry from mobile marketing, the issue at stake is that using the DMA to make Google et al provide poorer services isn’t going to help anyone, no matter what business you’re in.
American Carnage: Can the DMA withstand Trump?
Lastly: Donald Trump. Whatever your opinion of him is, he’s back—and the effect on the DMA could be profound. Or so it seems.
As the Canadian broadcaster BNN Bloomberg reports, Trump has strong links with Silicon Valley figures like Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook. In recent months, he’s even won over Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. To put things into perspective: three of those individuals own DMA gatekeeper companies, and the other one, Musk, is at loggerheads with the European Commission.
Thus, with the EU cracking down on these firms, there’s a risk—or so this logic goes—that a protectionist US president may penalize the EU for penalizing American companies. This, however, overlooks the fact that it isn’t just Europe that’s enacting digital antitrust legislation. From this month, the UK’s own version of the DMA is going live, while both Australia and India are moving ahead with theirs too. Moreover, even the US Department of Justice thinks that monopolies like Google have had their day. As such, it seems unlikely that a US president would provoke a global trade war over business practices that have rightly been condemned in his own country too. Time will tell. But as far as the app economy goes, whatever these Silicon Valley CEOs have on their wish lists for Trump won’t alter the fact that the DMA and its ilk are here to stay.
Once again, that’s all from me. Speak to you again next month.
—Robert.
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