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Europe's Digital Markets Act Is Breaking Open the Empires of Big Tech

Tech giants have to comply with a new EU law that is set to change the internet. It aims to force open the biggest platforms to encourage competition and give users more choice in their digital lives.

Five years ago, Shoshana Zuboff’s book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism neatly articulated much of lawmakers’ critique of the tech giants, just as they were preparing to enforce the flagship GDPR privacy law. Now as the EU enacts another historic piece of tech regulation, the Digital Markets Act, which companies must comply with starting tomorrow, March 7, a different critic du jour sums up the new mood in Brussels. For almost every big tech service, there is a smaller homegrown equivalent: from German search engine Ecosia to French messaging app Olvid and Polish Amazon alternative Allegro.

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