The European Commission’s digital single market reforms will aim to level the playing field between telecoms operators and OTT giants, reports the FT.
Based on a draft document, Brussels will acknowledge that players such as Whatsapp and Skype provide…
The European Commission’s digital single market reforms will aim to level the playing field between telecoms operators and OTT giants, reports the FT.
Based on a draft document, Brussels will acknowledge that players such as Whatsapp and Skype provide services rivalling those of telcos, yet are not subject to the same rules.
The news will come as a fillip to European operators, which have long complained that they are subjected to heavy regulation, while OTT is subject to little or none.
Speaking at her first overseas event last week, European commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager warded off inevitable accusations of protectionism. One Brussels-based competition lawyer, however, said “this may not 100% be the case”.
Assuming these reforms go ahead, it will demonstrate that Vestager is willing to listen to industry comments and complaints, continued the lawyer.
When he laid out his policy agenda, EC president Jean-Claude Juncker called for “a fair level-playing field for all companies offering their goods and services online and in digital form in the EU…Companies will need to be subject to the same data protection and consumer rules, regardless of where their servers are based.”
By creating a connected digital single market, Juncker estimates that €250bn of additional growth can be generated during his term in office.
The EC is already taking on Google. After years of back and forth, it formally charged the search giant with unfairly promoting its shopping comparison site at the expense of others. It also said it would investigate whether Android, its mobile operating system, was engaging in anticompetitive behaviour.
Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy, said: “If the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe.”
