The European Union has introduced new privacy directives and laws to regulate the collection and sharing of personal data – ePrivacy directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

Recently, attention has turned to anti-competitive behavior in digital advertising and marketing industries. As a result, the EU and the government in the UK have opened various investigations into major tech giants. In a similar attempt to bring in regulation, the EU introduced two laws to create fair competition and protect the rights of users in the EU. The Digital Marketing Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) were created to assist the EU in achieving better regulation.   

Few points to remember: 

• The DMA and DSA as regulatory laws complement each other 

• The DMA focuses on fair competition while protecting the fundamental rights of consumers 

• The DMA aims to achieve this through regulation of large tech platforms, encouraging them to be ‘gatekeepers’ 

• The DSA focuses on the growth and competitiveness of businesses irrespective of size and protects users and their rights. 

• The DMA will have a bigger impact on the largest online businesses 

• There are new rules within the DSA and DMA that AdTech companies, publishers and advertisers will also need to follow to avoid being penalized  

Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market, said during the official Press Release: “We are finally building a single digital market, the most important one in the ‘free world.’ The same predictable rules will apply, everywhere in the EU, for our 450 million citizens, bringing everyone a safer and fairer digital space.”