Who Are the Digital Gatekeepers in Europe?

As more of our lives go online, we're having to change how we look at the way we carry out many different activities. With new technical innovations making online work and hobbies easier for everyone to carry out, it’s important that we keep up to date with the innovations and also understand who the digital gatekeepers are in Europe and beyond.

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The Latest Online Innovations

Among the changes we've seen in recent years that have made our digital lives so important to us, employment has become far more flexible thanks to the digital working opportunities open to us. The European Union has confirmed that about a fifth of workers in the region carry out at least part of their roles on a mobile basis, working from public transport, coffee shops and other places that aren’t their main place of employment or home.

In terms of hobbies, we can see how wide the selection is by looking at the range of online casino games currently available. Table games like roulette and blackjack have gone online in live dealer versions, where a human presenter is live-streamed onto the player’s screen. The popularity of this way of playing has seen many people give it a try as new versions emerge, and operators have further attracted customers with a live casino bonus, which can be used in different games. It’s possible to play on mobile devices as well as laptops.

The trend for doing more online has also reached other areas of our lives, such as the way we view sports. 24% of British citizens stream live sports action, with the leading countries around the planet being China (54%) and Indonesia (50%). The impact has been lower in Japan, where only 13% of the population streams live sports, while in the US the impact of Lionel Messi’s arrival to Inter Miami has seen the number of Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass subscriptions double in recent months.

Source: Pixabay

What Is the Digital Markets Act?

In this ever-changing digital environment, the Digital Markets Act was introduced in the EU to bring the same type of competition policies that we see in the conventional business world to the online scene. As part of this, six of the world’s biggest tech companies have been named as digital gatekeepers. These are the American giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, together with Chinese firm ByteDance.

What this means is that each of these huge companies has new legal obligations to meet as part of the services that they provide. With millions of daily users, they dominate the market in such a way that the EU believes they need to show a greater level of accountability and allow for free choice among their users. They won’t be able to advertise their own products more favourably than others and also need to allow users to remove pre-installed apps easily if they choose.

All of this means that we can enjoy a more complete online experience in many different aspects of life. No matter what you most enjoy doing online, there are more options than ever before and many companies are taking a responsible approach.

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