Cloud providers warn: EU DMA directive is riddled with loopholes
European cloud computing companies are concerned that there are worrying provisions in the EU’s master plan to combat anti-competitive behavior that could stymie these efforts.
In an open letter published this week to Margrethe Vestager (European Commissioner for Competition), 41 European cloud services companies called for an urgent clarification of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in order to prevent the enactment of a bad law in their opinion.
The signatories to the letter include companies of all sizes, from start-ups to large companies such as the French company OVHCloud. They wrote: “We are dealing with a very disturbing situation. Many cloud-enabled software vendors are once again taking advantage of their dominant position to block customers by forcing them to use the cloud infrastructure they provide. This software license abuse means that smaller cloud infrastructure providers They can’t compete with them. And these are several times innovative European cloud companies that have been cut off from this market.”
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According to the signatories to the letter, the DMA document should contain clear countermeasures to stop the abusive practices of these software vendors. Corrections are necessary to prevent such situations from occurring. This is why European cloud companies are concerned that the language and examples provided in the DMA project are not clear enough to provide legal clarity to this IT sector.
The commission submitted a Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) document regulating, among other things, the issue of so-called digital “watchers” – that is, large intermediary platforms with significant market power – already in December 2020, noting that the new regulations would impose certain obligations on companies The main provider of cloud software. It must comply with certain competition rules that prohibit the use of certain behaviors, such as self-preference or preventing the interoperability of the offered solutions.
The EU executive has announced that Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) will bring the system to this market by creating a system of proactive antitrust intervention that will control the actions of tech giants. However, UNHCR’s approach in many cases (such as operating systems, browsers or voice assistants) may pose a risk of creating blind spots in this market. Inaccuracies can also be used by tech giants to file legal complaints to avoid or delay their obligations.
