A group representing Europe’s commercial broadcasters has asked the European Commission to extend its toughest Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules to smart TVs and virtual assistants, Reuters reported exclusively. Here are the details.
Broadcast groups want smart TVs and virtual assistants to be designated as gatekeepers
As reported by Reuters, the Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe (ACT) is calling for smart TV platforms and virtual assistants to be designated as gatekeepers under the DMA:
Google, Amazon, Apple and Samsung’s smart TVs and virtual assistants should fall under the EU’s toughest tech rules because of their growing market power, the world’s largest broadcasters told EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera on Monday.
ACT represents major broadcasters, including Canal+, RTL, Mediaset, ITV, Paramount+, NBCUniversal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sky, and TF1 Groupe, some of which have had or still maintain close ties to Apple, including content partnerships for Apple TV.
The letter was reportedly also signed by groups such as “Association of European Radios (AER), the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European association of television and radio sales houses (egta), Confindustria Radio Televisioni (CRTV), Televisión Comercial en Abierto (UTECA) and Verband Österreichischer Privatsender (VOP).”
According to Reuters, ACT said that “[a] limited number of operators are therefore gaining growing ability to shape outcomes for millions of users and businesses by controlling access to audiences and content distribution,” adding that “[I]t is crucial that the Commission designate major TV operating systems as gatekeepers and ensure adequate oversight to guarantee fairness and contestability.”
The lobbying group reportedly argues that Apple and its counterparts “may have incentives to retain end-users within their own ecosystem and to contractually or technically restrict linking or redirection,” echoing arguments often made about the App Store, which already falls under the DMA.
Apple and the EU have been locked in a lengthy back-and-forth over App Store rules under the Digital Markets Act, with the latest round of proposed changes being under review for almost a year.
On the other hand, Apple recently got a rare win in Europe, after Apple Maps and the company’s Ads services were ruled not to be gatekeepers, due to their “low usage and limited market impact in Europe.”
Importantly, today’s request by ACT isn’t limited to smart TVs. In their letter to the EU, ACT reportedly also “voiced concerns about virtual assistants, the most well known of which are Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, while OpenAI entered the field last year with a beta feature called Tasks for its AI chatbot ChatGPT.”
As Reuters noted, virtual assistants haven’t yet been labeled as gatekeepers under the DMA, which ACT says has created “a regulatory void, allowing powerful AI assistants to become de facto gatekeepers for media content through mobile phones, smart speakers and in-car radio infotainment services, without being subject to DMA obligations.”
To read Reuters’s full report, follow this link.
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