UK’s new regulator to check 'behaviour' of Google, Facebook under fresh guidelines

In an effort to rein in the digital industry's key players, UK’s new tech regulator Alok Sharma has proposed reforms to limit the power of Google, Facebook, and other tech giants. Under UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sharma aims to draft a pro-competition regulatory regime to create a fair market for the consumers, as he said, the domination of a few tech giants “hurts innovation”.

According to the UK’s DCMS release, the CMA will acquire the Digital Markets Unit and will draft a new code of conduct to regulate the “behaviour” of the technological firms under UK’s new regulations. 

While the details of the code and the type of restrictions on the companies remains unclear, it is likely to impact the firms that enjoy strategic market status and the platforms funded by digital advertising. UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport will also set up new policies aimed at “fair deals” and terms and conditions for the digital news publishers to enable them to be able to monetise their content, DCMS informed. The reform will ensure that the tech firms ensured “more transparency” about the services they provide and data consumption. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will coordinate with regulators including Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and will introduce the measures by 2021, April. 

UK's Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden told reporters of UK's Central Fife Times that while he was "unashamedly pro-tech" and believed that the services of digital platforms have been positively transforming the economy, bringing huge benefits to businesses, consumers and society, he is also concerned about misuse of power. There is a growing consensus in the UK and abroad that the concentration of power among a small number of tech companies is curtailing the growth of the sector, reducing innovation and having negative impacts on the people and businesses that rely on them, he told CFT's reporters.

Meanwhile, Business Secretary Alok Sharma said that Digital platforms like Google and Facebook make a significant contribution to the economy and play a massive role, but dominance of just a few big tech companies is leading to less innovation, higher advertising prices and less choice and control for consumers. Further, UK's House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee warned that "fundamental imbalance of power” must be fixed to ensure that publishing platforms were pulled out of the existential threat. 

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Combat 'disinformation'

Earlier, Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden and Health Secretary Matt Hancock made the social media tech giants agree to a package of measures to combat disinformation related to the covid vaccines and the pandemic. “No company should be profiting from COVID-19 vaccine disinformation and commit to swifter responses to flagged content,” UK’s government emphasized in a release.

Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden and Health Secretary Matt Hancock conducted a round table meeting to make Facebook, Twitter, and Google commit to the principle to flag pandemic-related unverified content “more swiftly”. “Covid disinformation is dangerous and could cost lives. While social media companies are taking steps to stop it from spreading on their platforms there is much more that can be done,” Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden said. The new measures will seek commitment from social media giants “not to profit from or promote flagged anti-vax content, given that making money from this dangerous content would be wrong,” he added. 

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