The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will get statutory powers to enforce a “pro-competition” regime, under a new government plan.
The goal will be to rebalance the relationship tech giants have with consumers and businesses and will allow the DMU to designate firms light Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple as having “strategic market status.” These firms will be forced to adhere to binding codes of conduct.
Failure to comply with the DMU and its rules could result in fines of up to 10 per cent of annual global turnover for tech companies, with additional penalties of five per cent of daily global turnover for each day the offence continues. Senior managers could face civil penalties if their firms fail to engage properly with the DMU’s requests for information.
Digital minister Chris Philp said: “Technology has revolutionised the way thousands of UK firms do business – helping them reach new customers and putting a range of instant online services at people’s fingertips. But the dominance of a few tech giants is crowding out the competition and stifling innovation.”
“We want to level the playing field and we are arming this new tech regulator with a range of powers to generate lower prices, better choice and more control for consumers, while backing content creators, innovators and publishers, including in our vital news industry.”
The government added that conduct requirements on the biggest tech firms would include making it easier for people to switch between phone operating systems and social media accounts; paying news publishers fairly for online news content, and reporting takeovers and mergers before completion to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) so it can decide whether or not to investigate.
Tech firms would also be expected to meet new obligations around trust and transparency by, for example, alerting smaller businesses that rely on their platforms and search engines to algorithm changes that could steer traffic away from their sites and drive down revenue, and giving users more control over how their data is used.
Powers the DMU will be given to intervene in the root causes of market dominance include being able to force firms with strategic market status to share data with smaller competitors to limit their advantage; resolve pricing disputes between platforms and news publishers; as well as suspend, block and reverse behaviour by firms that breach the conduct requirements.
