US pushes to change EU’s digital gatekeeper rules

The United States is pressing the EU to revise rules targeting digital giants to make them focus less on American companies and ensure they will also cover tech firms from outside the US. The move, which aims to change the so-called Digital Markets Act (DMA), highlights Washington's concern about plans to rein in the biggest tech companies as the US government is targeting Brussels officials in the midst of ongoing talks in the Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council, a high-level transatlantic discussion group. At the end of January 2022 Washington circulated the eight-point policy document to "select" MEPs and member countries, in the middle of key negotiations between EU institutions on the bloc’s draft gatekeeper rules. The rules — currently being hotly debated by representatives from the European Parliament and the EU Council — lay out a series of prohibitions and obligations for some of the world’s largest digital platforms, including Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook) and Apple. The draft measures cover a range of practices from unfair data use across platform services to self-referencing restrictions. Negotiators are seeking to adopt the DMA on March 24.  The US paper calls on the EU to avoid a narrow scope of platforms that will come under the new rules, avoiding the potential to disproportionately target American companies — a concern previously highlighted by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.  Secretary Raimondo has also been facing pressure from left-leaning groups for her perceived coziness with US tech giants.