Launch of the Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets

Par: Abilian 06/12/2021 Europe Tous les articles

Abilian joins 45+ other companies in the sector to launch the Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets. The #CompDM advocates stricter rules for large online platforms. **The so-called gatekeepers (GAFAMs) must no longer be allowed to control consumers' access to information and abuse their position to restrict market access.

The Digital Markets Act must impose stricter rules on pre-installed applications, interoperability and bundling to make digital markets open and competitive.

In short, the Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets wants :

For more information: visit the website where you can sign up to join us!

About Abilian

Abilian develops and markets open source software and uses its expertise to enhance the competitiveness of businesses, local authorities and public services: business solutions dedicated to R&D, innovation and regional economic development, corporate social networks, professional directories, etc. Abilian's technological skills cover the main areas related to the digital transformation of organisations and social business (Enterprise 2.0): Enterprise Information Management (EIM), Cloud, Web 2.0, Data Analytics - all based on open source technologies, with the company's strong involvement in the French and European free software ecosystem. 

Open letter to MEPs: The EU needs an effective law on digital markets

We are writing to you as a large group of European technology companies to ask you to include and support in the future Digital Markets Act ("Digital Markets Directive") the toughest ground rules for dominant companies "gatekeepers" detailed below. These conditions are essential to unlock Europe's economic potential and give European technology companies a chance to become global technology leaders.

  • Interoperability is a key factor in the early success of the Internet and an essential tool for the EU to achieve digital sovereignty, restore opportunities for industry players of all sizes and promote fair competition in digital markets. A provision to extend interoperability to all essential platform services would result in greater efficiency for European businesses and public administrations, stimulating competition and innovation in digital markets by allowing businesses of all sizes to compete with gatekeepers on their merits.

  • Prohibit gatekeepers' harmful self-referencing practices by introducing an explicit ban on pre-installation and default settings of essential platform services**. End-users should be able to select their preferred essential platform service, for example via a preferences menu. Simply being able to uninstall applications or change default settings more easily is far from solving the root of the problem, as 95% of users never change the default settings provided with their device. This situation is particularly detrimental on smartphones, which are now the main gateway to the Internet for most users.

  • Extend the ban on bundling to secondary services**, as limiting the provision to basic services could further restrict competition in the market. Bundling is a process frequently used by incumbent operators to extend their dominance to other services and rapidly control the corresponding markets.

Digital markets where established companies already benefit from a large user base are extremely difficult to compete with due to the so-called "network effect", even when European companies and start-ups design better and more innovative products. Gatekeepers create closed ecosystems - "walled gardens" - with barriers to entry. They undermine interoperability, then use bundling and self-referencing to conquer markets for other products and services. Restoring competition, consumer choice and interoperability with other service providers would allow European challengers to compete on the merits of their services.

The Digital Markets Act has the potential to solve these problems and liberate Europe's internet industry. **To put an end to walled gardens, we urge you to ensure that the DMA tackles barriers to interoperability, bundling and anti-competitive pre-installation defaults.

We hope you will seize this opportunity.