As a representative of SMEs in the ​European Internet industry, we strongly support open and competitive digital markets.

Large gatekeeper platforms are dominant across different fields, e.g. search and browser, app stores and operating systems, or social media and instant messaging. Their dominance allows them to attract ever-more users and collect more data about customers, which confirms their dominance even more.

With this open letter to the Members of the European Parliament, several companies are joining forces to ask for stronger interoperability requirements in the upcoming Digital Markets Act. The Digital Markets Act, like the GDPR, will set the global standard for online competition. A strong interoperability requirement would give European firms the chance to compete fairly in markets currently dominated by US businesses, and provide genuine choice for Europeans in services that better protect their rights and democratic values.

An interoperability requirement for “gatekeeper” firms would give a fair chance for new market entrants to compete on the merits of their services. This would allow Europe to compete effectively in digital markets where incumbent companies already have extremely large user bases, and give European end-users the benefit of the increased choice and innovation that competition would bring.

This would ensure, for example, that Europeans concerned with data protection, or with the content curation algorithms by dominant social media services, would genuinely have alternatives “just a click away”. It would also give European SMEs, larger businesses and public administrations greater choice, more efficiency, and lower costs because they would enjoy a wider range of suppliers to choose from for each task, and the possibility to obtain equipment, services and systems more closely adapted to their specific needs.

We hope that you join this cause and sign the letter. For any questions about this campaign, please contact Annika at a.linck@digitalsme.eu.