Report from TechCrunch
In Brief – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened investigations of the mobile ecosystems run by Apple and Google under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer’s Act (DMCC) to determine if the two digital giants have “strategic market status” (SMS) under the law designed to protect competition in digital markets. The regulator has been investigating the two mobile businesses since 2022, including their operating systems, app stores, and access to hardware capabilities. The CMA will be looking at “competition between and within” Apple’s and Google’s respective ecosystems, including whether the two “favour their own apps and services” or use barriers that may be preventing others from competing. Apple responded to the announcement saying, “We face competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users,” while Google said, “Android’s openness has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratise access to smartphones and apps” while noting its open-source operating system. The SMS processes for the Apple and Google mobile ecosystems are expected to run through October.
Context – The chance that the Apple and Google mobile ecosystems won’t have SMS per the DMCC is near zero. The same will be true in the Google Search probe opened two weeks ago, and almost certainly in the DMCC probes of Amazon AWS and Microsoft cloud businesses expected from the CMA soon. All four companies are “gatekeepers” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the DMCC is the UK’s parallel digital regulation regime. The DMA imposes 18 high-level mandates on 24 platforms of seven gatekeepers while the DMCC aims to impose a company-by-company tailored set of rules. That rule-setting process is now underway as the UK’s Starmer Government tries to chart a regulatory path that is perceived as more digital business friendly than the EU to promote more tech-led economic growth, with highlights including the recent sacking of the Chair of the CMA and a new Growth and Investment Council with business leaders.