BRUSSELS, Sept 12 — When Apple unveils its newest iPhone as we speak, the European Union could have left its mark on the US big’s flagship product.
Now the iPhone 15 is anticipated to have a USB-C charger, as an alternative of Apple’s common Lightning charger, after the EU ordered producers to undertake a standard connection.
Brussels stated this may make prospects’ lives simpler and scale back waste.
Apple vehemently opposed the 2022 regulation, arguing it could penalise innovation, however the EU’s 27 international locations kind the world’s largest single market and Brussels has big tech in its sights.
The widespread charger shouldn’t be the solely bruising battle in opposition to big tech the EU has received, and Brussels believes it would win on extra fronts in the weeks and months to come.
Here are a few of the methods the EU has pressured digital titans to play by new guidelines in Europe and past:
‘Digital rulebook’
The groundbreaking Digital Services Act (DSA) and its sister regulation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), are the greatest and most up-to-date makes an attempt to rein in tech firms.
The DSA calls for corporations crack down on dangerous and unlawful content material on-line in addition to assess the dangers their platforms pose to society.
Any firm in violation of the DSA dangers a high-quality of up to six per cent of annual world turnover.
Under the guidelines, 19 “very massive” on-line platforms — together with Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (previously referred to as Twitter) and YouTube — had to adjust to the DSA by late August.
All platforms can be pressured to comply by February 2024.
The massive platforms named have already made modifications together with a ban on focused promoting to youngsters in addition to offering customers with a non-personalised feed.
The modifications aren’t restricted to the European Union. Snapchat stated it could prohibit personalised promoting to minors in Britain as properly.
“There’s a means of gradual change in the means these platforms do issues that’s going to be began, however it’s not going to be an in a single day change,” stated Sally Broughton Micova of the Centre on Regulation in Europe suppose tank.
The DMA is one other thorn in the tech corporations’ aspect, particularly for Apple. The regulation seeks to dilute the dominance of sure gamers and goals to make the market fairer.
The EU named six “gatekeepers”: Google’s Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook proprietor Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance’s TikTok. The guidelines apply from March 2024.
For Apple, it maybe brings certainly one of the greatest modifications in its ecosystem, dominated by its App Store. The DMA will power Apple to permit third-party app shops.
“The DMA will actually have an effect on how they design their buildings,” an EU official stated.
Companies may even have to make it simpler for customers to ship messages between apps.
But the modifications include a worth. Meta’s new Twitter-like platform Threads has not been rolled out in the EU but due to the bloc’s guidelines.
Data safety
The mammoth General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) got here into power in 2018 and was the EU’s hardest and most well-known regulation on tech, making certain residents give consent to the methods in which their knowledge is used.
There has been a wave of fines for violations.
In May, the Irish privateness watchdog handed the greatest ever particular person high-quality of €1.2 billion (RM6 billion) to Meta over its transfers of non-public knowledge between Europe and the United States.
The GDPR’s influence has additionally been felt past Europe.
“Businesses hardly appeared for EU-only options as a result of if you’re on the world market, you provide that instantly to all so customers elsewhere can profit from extra privateness,” the EU official stated.
The EU’s newest tech goal is synthetic intelligence after the chatbot ChatGPT showcased the expertise’s speedy developments final yr. — eNM pic
The future is AI
The EU’s newest tech goal is synthetic intelligence after the chatbot ChatGPT showcased the expertise’s speedy developments final yr.
Brussels hopes to inexperienced gentle an all-encompassing regulation on AI by the finish of 2023.
“The AI act could also be the much more daring factor to do,” the EU official stated, including the problem was even larger for the EU than the DSA or DMA.
The official additionally pointed to the Data Act centered on sharing industrial knowledge, which is anticipated to come into power in 2025. — eNM
