The UK government has introduced a new digital markets bill today to crack down on Big Tech and improve the protection of consumers.
The bill is taking on tech giants like Google, Amazon and Meta, who currently lead a huge portion of the market, making it easy for them to keep smaller competitors from getting ahead.
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The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Britain’s antitrust watchdog, launched a dedicated Digital Markets Unit (DMU) in 2021 in an attempt to regulate new digital markets.
However, without a much-needed legal framework, the DMU’s work was unable to make the profound impact it had intended.
With this newly passed bill, the DMU has been granted powers over tech companies that have a global turnover of more than £25bn, or a British turnover above £1bn, Reuters reported.
As well as dealing with competition, the new legislation aims to make it easier for consumers to opt out of online subscriptions and tackle the issue of fake reviews on apps.
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By GlobalDataThe CMA will now be able to fine companies up to 10% of their global turnover for breaches of consumer protection law – a higher penalty threshold than ever before.
“This should make compliance with consumer protection legislation a board-level issue as these fines will be more significant than the equivalent sanctions for breach of data protection law,” Katrina Anderson, consumer protection compliance lawyer at law firm Osborne Clarke, told Verdict.
“The government clearly intends to force platforms and websites to take more responsibility for ensuring that reviews are genuine,” she added.
Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive, said the bill could be a “watershed moment” in making sure digital markets worked for the British economy and that consumers were protected.
“This bill is a legal framework fit for the digital age,” she said.
The UK is following in the footsteps of the European Union which implemented in its own Digitial Services Act, in November 2022, to take on Big Tech’s dominance of the industry.
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
