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According to the UK government, big tech companies like Google and Facebook will have to follow new competition rules or face huge fines.
The new Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will be able to stop “predatory practices” from being used by some companies.
If businesses don’t follow the rules, the regulator will be able to find them up to 10% of their total global sales. The rules are meant to make tech companies compete more and give users more control over their own data.
The BBC has tried to get in touch with Apple, Google, and Meta but hasn’t heard anything back.
In addition to large fines, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) said that tech companies could be fined 5% of their daily global turnover for every day they continue to break the law.
That could be tens of billions of dollars for a big company like Apple.
“Senior managers will be fined if their companies don’t respond to requests for information in the right way,” the government said.
The government has said that the needed laws will be passed “in due course,” but it is not clear when the changes will happen.
Europe enacts new legislation to prevent Big Tech from taking over.
Chris Philp, the minister for digital, said that the government wanted to “level the playing field” in the technology industry, where some American companies have been accused of abusing their market dominance.
“The power of a few tech giants makes it hard for other companies to compete and slows down innovation,” he said.
In addition to trying to hold Big Tech accountable, the DMU will try to give people more control over how tech companies use their data, such as by showing them more relevant ads.
It will also make it easier for people to switch between phone operating systems like Apple iOS or Android and social media accounts without losing messages or data.
Critics have called these closed systems “walled gardens” because they only let people buy products from one company.
The government said that the regulator will also look at Google’s search engine, which is the default search engine for Apple products.
It also said that it wants news publishers to get paid fairly for their content and that it will give the regulator the power to solve problems.
Meta, Google, and news publishers have been fighting with each other, so this is being done. The argument is that while many local and national news outlets are struggling to stay in business, big tech companies are making record profits and getting more money from advertising because of the stories they make.
Meta and Google both send traffic to news organizations, so they say they help each other out.
Last year, the situation got worse when an Australian law proposal meant to “even the playing field” caused Facebook to temporarily block Australian news organizations until a deal was made.
The UK government said that its new rules could give national and local newspapers more “bargaining power.”
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