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Breton will announce new draft rules known as the Digital
Services Act and the Digital Markets Act together with European
Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Dec. 2.
The rules will set out a list of do's and don'ts for gatekeepers
- online companies with market power - forcing them to share
data with rivals and regulators and not to promote their
services and products unfairly.
The new draft rules come as critics of U.S. tech giants, which
include companies and industry bodies, question the EU’s rulings
against Alphabet <GOOGL.O> unit Google, saying they have not
curbed its allegedly anti-competitive behaviour. Some want EU
enforcers to go further than just ordering companies to stop
such practices.
The draft rules would allow the EU to ban companies or part of
their services from the 27-country bloc as an extreme option.
Until the draft rules are adopted EU antitrust and digital
regulators do not currently have the power to impose such bans.
"Strict rules must be enforceable", Breton told Welt am Sonntag.
"For this we need the appropriate arsenal of possible measures:
Impose fines, exclude companies or parts of their services from
the Single Market, insist that they split up if they want to
keep access to the Single Market. Or a combination of all of
these."
He added that these sanctions would only apply to companies that
do not respect the EU's rules, and that the toughest measures
would only be used in exceptional circumstances.
In a sign of how much tech firms fear the new regulation, Google
unit last month launched a 60-day strategy to get U.S. allies to
push back against the EU's digital chief.
(Reporting by Arno Schuetze and Yun Chee Foo. Editing by Jane
Merriman)
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