European Union: Parliament adopts position on data handling obligations in DMA

On 15 December 2021, the European Parliament adopted the text of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The approved text includes several amendments regarding the data handling obligations in the DMA. The Parliament amended the provisions to strengthen the obligations that “gatekeepers” will have to comply with, adding requirements regarding targeted advertising to end-users. The companies will have to refrain from using data of individuals under 18 years old for targeted advertising. The institution changed the wording regarding the obligations, to include that “gatekeepers” have to refrain from including “contractual obligations” that could prevent business users from promoting their services and products to end-users on other platforms or their website, at different prices and conditions from those offered through the gatekeeper’s platform. In addition, it maintains that business users should be allowed to promote offers to end-users obtained through the gatekeeper platform or other channels and conclude contracts with those users or receive payments despite not using for that purpose the core platform service of the gatekeeper. The Parliament introduced an amendment that states that end-users should be allowed to use software applications acquired from a business user, to access and use content, subscriptions, features or other items through the core platform services of the gatekeeper, unless the gatekeeper can provide evidence that such access is compromising the end user’s data protection or cybersecurity. The Parliament will start the negotiations with the EU Council on the DMA in the first quarter of 2022 under the French presidency of the Council.