Lobbying groups representing key sectors such as airlines, hotels, and retailers have urged European Union (EU) tech regulators to consider their perspectives and not just those of large intermediaries when implementing changes to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
These sectors fear that Google’s current compliance adjustments could negatively impact their direct sales revenues.
The EU’s DMA aims to create a fairer digital market by imposing a set of regulations on major tech companies, including Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, and Alibaba.
The act is designed to ensure that these tech giants do not abuse their market dominance and foster greater competition. Thus, users will have more choices, and the competitive landscape for smaller companies will improve.
A coalition of industry groups, including Airlines for Europe (which counts Air France KLM and British Airways owner IAG among its members), the hotel group Hotrec, the European Hotel Forum, EuroCommerce, Ecommerce Europe, and Independent Retail Europe, has voiced significant concerns regarding the implementation of the DMA.
In a joint letter dated May 22 to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager and EU industry chief Thierry Breton, these groups highlighted their escalating worries about the potential negative impacts on their industries.
They argued that the changes might unduly favor large online intermediaries, such as booking platforms and e-commerce aggregators, potentially sidelining direct sales channels crucial for hotels, airlines, and retailers.
The letter stressed that initial observations suggest that the proposed changes could significantly reduce direct sales revenues for companies in these sectors by giving undue prominence to powerful online intermediaries. These intermediaries could receive preferential treatment in search results, leading to a decline in traffic and direct bookings for hotels, airlines, merchants, and restaurants.
