On Thursday, Google will have changed the way it displays certain search results. Microsoft will no longer allow Windows customers to use its Bing Internet search tool by default. And Apple will give iPhone and iPad users access to rival app stores and payment systems for the first time.
tech giants have been preparing ahead of Wednesday's deadline to comply with a new European Union law aimed at increasing competition in the digital economy. The law, called the Digital Markets Act, requires larger tech companies to review how some of their products work so smaller rivals can gain more access to their users.
Those changes are some of the most visible changes that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta and others are making in response to a wave of new regulations and laws around the world. In the United States, some of the tech giants have said they will abandon practices that are the subject of federal antitrust investigations. Apple, for example, is making it easier for Android users to interact with its iMessage product, an issue the Justice Department has been investigating.
“This is a turning point,” said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the European Commission in Brussels, who spent much of the last decade fighting with the tech giants. “Self-regulation is over.”
For decades, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta advanced with few rules and limits. As his power, wealth and reach grew, a flurry of regulatory activity, legislation and legal cases against him emerged in Europe, the United States, China, India, Canada, South Korea and Australia. Now, that global tipping point for reining in the biggest tech companies has finally tipped.
Companies have been forced to modify the everyday technology they offer, including the devices and features of their social media services, which have been especially noticeable to users in Europe. Companies are also making important changes that are less visible, for example in their business models, trading and data sharing practices.
The degree of change is evident at Apple. The Silicon Valley company once offered its App Store as a unified marketplace around the world, but now has different rules for App Store developers in South Korea, the European Union and the United States due to new laws and court rulings. The company abandoned the proprietary design of an iPhone charger due to another EU law, meaning future iPhones will have a charger that will work with non-Apple devices.
On Monday, EU regulators fined Apple 1.8 billion euros, or $1.95 billion, for thwarting competition between music streaming rivals.
The changes mean that people's technological experiences will increasingly differ depending on where they live. In Europe, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat users under the age of 18 no longer see ads based on their personal data, as a result of a 2022 law called the Digital Services Act. In other parts of the world, young people still see such ads on these platforms.
The tech industry is essentially maturing and becoming more like banking, automobiles and healthcare, with companies adapting their products and services to local laws and regulations, said Greg Taylor, a University of Oxford professor focused on competition in technological markets.
“This represents a radical change in the way we regulate the technology sector,” he said. “Although the EU is the first to leave, other jurisdictions around the world are trying to do similar things.”
However, even as big tech companies make changes, smaller rivals like Spotify say much more government action is needed around the world to seriously address their enormous power. Many of the companies continue to post record profits and sales. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple and Alphabet, Google's parent company, have helped drive the stock market to new highs. Their combined market value has more than doubled since the end of 2019 to nearly $10.6 trillion.
Even policymakers behind some of the new rules said it was unrealistic to assume that the new laws and regulations would immediately dislodge dominant companies like Google or Apple. Andreas Schwab, a member of the European Parliament who helped draft the Digital Markets Act, said the hope was that over time the rules, if firmly enforced, would provide room for new entrants to emerge and grow.
“The tipping point will be reached when we have more competition and not just a change of some products,” said Schwab, who traveled to Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Singapore over the past year to discuss the European Union's new technology rules. . . “Maybe in a year we'll say they were important, or maybe in a year we'll say it's a joke because the changes didn't mean anything.”
Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft declined interview requests.
Few laws have forced technology companies to make as many adjustments as the Digital Markets Act. The EU law was passed in 2022 to prevent the biggest tech companies from using their intertwined services and deep pockets to lock in users and crush their rivals. The law affects everything from online advertising to messaging apps to in-app payment methods. Violators could face penalties of up to 20 percent of their global income.
For more than a year, technology companies have negotiated with EU regulators in Brussels about changes to their products, services and businesses to comply with the rules.
In January, Google said it would reduce the visibility of its own services in search results and link more to rivals in queries on topics such as flights and restaurants. The company also pledged to allow European users to limit the sharing of personal data between services such as search, YouTube and Chrome, a change long sought by privacy groups.
That month, Apple said that, in addition to the change allowing rival app stores and payment services, customers in Europe with a new iPhone would see a screen to select a default browser instead of the iPhone automatically using Apple's browser. Safari.
Around the same time, the Digital Services Law, aimed at combating illegal online content, has also begun to take effect. European users have gained new tools to report toxic content. Online platforms like Google and Meta can no longer allow advertisers to target users based on their ethnicity, political opinions and sexual orientation. TikTok and Instagram users can also choose to see posts without any recommended content chosen by an algorithm based on their personal data.
Europe's aggressive approach is increasingly emulated abroad. In Australia, a 2021 law required companies like Alphabet and Meta to pay the country's media outlets for syndicating news articles on their sites, resulting in settlements estimated at $100 million. On Thursday, Meta said it would not renew agreements with Australian media companies, which could lead to further government action.
In Indonesia, TikTok shut down its online shopping service last year after the country banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms. Nepal banned TikTok entirely last year. India banned the app in 2020.
In the United States, the push is also gaining momentum. The Federal Trade Commission sued Meta in 2020, arguing that the company snuffed out nascent competition by buying young rivals. It sued Amazon last year over allegations that the company had pressured small merchants on its site.
The Justice Department has also filed antitrust lawsuits against Google and could file one against Apple as early as the first half of this year. The cases could lead to orders for companies to change their practices, or even a partial breakup of their businesses.
Some of the companies are making adjustments that are ahead of U.S. regulators. In June, Amazon pledged to allow merchants to sell through its Prime subscription program without using its own logistics network, announcing the change before the government complained that such practices were anticompetitive. Google is allowing more mobile payment options to app developers, rather than just its own, as part of a proposed settlement with state attorneys general.
Legal fights loom. The Supreme Court heard arguments last month on whether Texas and Florida could legally prohibit sites like Facebook and TikTok from removing certain political content. If the states prevail, it will change how online platforms can set the terms of participation on their sites without interference from the US government.
Nu Wexler, a former employee at the Washington offices of Google, Meta and Twitter, who went by the name X, said tech companies were “making more concessions” and “are being more pragmatic.”
They're just “not as invincible as they were five years ago,” he said.
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed reporting from Seoul.
