Likely spurred on by Epic Games’ recent stateside legal battle with Apple concerning antitrust violations against Fortnite, the European Union has taken steps to curb the control that big tech companies have over application platforms.
This recent legislation adopted by the European Parliament is likely to impact companies like Google and Apple, along with any others who operate and control access to mobile application platforms.
Apple and Epic Games went head to head in the U.S., but the developer was largely unsuccessful as Apple won the majority of the lower-court rulings. In a subsequent Tweet, Richard Hoeg, a litigator at Hoeg Law, stated that ‘Apple is going to sue on this until the heat death of the universe.’
While it is in the best interest of big tech corporations like Apple and Google to keep fighting smaller suits like this, the legislation in Europe may prove these lawsuits irrelevant, at least as pertains to usage and regulation within European territories.
Under the new legislation, first proposed in 2020 as the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA), companies like Google and Apple will be classified as ‘gatekeepers’ due to their size and controlling interest in the mobile application market. As gatekeepers, these big tech mega-corporations will have to abide by new laws and regulations that prevent them from being able to exercise totalitarian control over gaming marketplaces and application platforms.
Some of these new regulations and laws are as follows:
- The gatekeepers will now have to allow users to install applications from third-party app stores and digital marketplaces. This is exactly what Epic Games is suing Apple for, so you can see how reluctant big tech is to allow third-party app store use.
- Gatekeepers will henceforth have to offer third-party payment systems within applications and allow developers to promote their products outside of the gatekeeper’s platforms.
- Gatekeepers will from this point have to allow developers to integrate their applications and digital services with those that the gatekeeper already operates.
Essentially, what this means for the average consumer is that big tech companies like Google and Apple will no longer have totalitarian control over the use of apps, software, operating systems or application platforms, at least in the EU. There are, however, whispers of bipartisan regulations coming to the U.S. that will restrict companies like Google and Apple in similar ways.
Getting back to Fortnite news, there are rumors that Dead by Daylight is going to team up with Fortnite for a collaboration soon.
