A group of 23 technology companies operating in Europe from 14 different countries and a business association of more than 45,000 digital SMEs announced today a new coalition to advocate for fair rules in digital markets. The Coalition for Competitive Digital Markets aims to contribute to a more balanced and open digital environment.
Today’s internet is dominated by services and products offered by a small number of dominant online platforms, such as Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. These so-called “gatekeepers” control consumers’ access to information and abuse their position in order to limit market access for European businesses that offer alternative business models and services such as search, email, social media, operating systems and browsers.
While many of the services offered by the gatekeepers have been beneficial to users, there is a growing concern worldwide regarding the detrimental effect stemming from the dominance of those large platforms in terms of both openness and contestability of the digital markets and the internet as a whole.
Even when tech challengers conceive better, more innovative products, they hardly stand a chance to reach customers. Gatekeepers maintain their position through a lack of interoperability, forced bundling and self-preferencing – in effect creating a walled garden of services which locks out competition and innovation.
The Coalition is calling for action on the following points:
An extension of the interoperability provision to all core platform services to improve efficiency for SMEs and make it easier for companies operating in Europe to compete with gatekeepers;
The introduction of an explicit ban on pre-installed apps and default settings allowing users to choose their own core services such as email, search and messaging apps;
The widening of the ban on bundling services with operating systems, to also include ancillary services, as narrowing the provision to core services only could still limit market contestability.
C4DM is engaging with hundreds of Member of the European Parliament (MEPs) and Council representatives to raise its concerns and draw attention to the importance of addressing these key points ahead of the final vote in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) on 8 November and of the adoption of the General Approach by the Council on 25 November.
This committee is working on legislation around the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Acts, new EU proposals to update the competition law for digital markets with upfront rules for ‘gatekeeping’ platforms. C4DM is calling for amendments to the DMA to include the extension of interoperability provisions to all core platform services, the ban of pre-installation and default setting of core platform apps, and the extension of the bundling prohibition to ancillary services.
To learn more about the Coalition’s key demands and to join us as a supporter, please check out the website.
Organisations, small and large, need a way to ensure the resiliency and digital sovereignty of their operations – an open-source, privacy-respecting alternative to Teams. And today, we present that solution - Nextcloud Talk.
Nextcloud has been recognized with the World Summit Award Germany that selects and promotes local digital innovation improving society, aiming to contribute to the United Nations' agenda of sustainable development goals.
Nextcloud Hub 9 lets you stay connected. Discover new federation features, workflow automation, big design overhaul and much much more in your favourite open-source collaboration platform!
DIE ZEIT, a prominent German outlet, interviewed Nextcloud’s founder Frank Karlitschek for an article on Microsoft’s anti-competitive behaviour on the European office software market. Read for a recap of the article and the key takeaways.
MagentaCLOUD’s migration to Nextcloud in 2021 resulted in a fully equipped Online Storage with an integrated online office suite that further improves the user experience, flexibility and security for customers.
We bring you a major update to the Nextcloud AI Assistant, plus the news we work with several big hosting providers like IONOS and OVHcloud to bring AI-as-a-Service options to you!
Bechtle and Nextcloud announce today a complete managed collaboration platform for the public sector that requires no tender and can be deployed immediately.
Discover how to make the switch from ownCloud to Nextcloud. Our quick guide provides insights into the migration process, helping you make the transition smoothly.
Today, US-based file sync & share vendor Kiteworks announced their acquisition of ownCloud and Dracoon. Kiteworks points out that their customers now have access to their file-sharing application. It is to be expected they will not maintain 3 similar products, but customers will have to migrate to the US firms’ platform or look for another […]
As part of Schleswig-Holstein's state digitization strategy, the state chancellery has announced they will work with Nextcloud to develop AI for working with government documents. This comes just after we announced the first private AI assistant last weekend with Hub 6. The German state already uses Nextcloud and their AI strategy aligns with our work on ethical, local AI technologies.
Over the last year, AI has become a popular topic. Some is hype, some is substance. Some is good, some is bad. We want to give you the good, not the bad, and ignore the hype! AI has a ton of opportunity – but also risk. So we put you in control – off by […]
In this article, we find out how open-source AI gets you your privacy back and explore examples of reliable AI models that you can use in your ecosystem.
On December 3rd, we invite you to the Nextcloud Enterprise Day Paris, Nextcloud's flagship event for professionals. The day will kick off with a keynote by our CEO and founder, Frank Karlitschek—a highlight where he will share our vision for the future of online collaboration, followed by a major announcement about Nextcloud Talk!
We save some cookies to count visitors and make the site easier to use. This doesn't leave our server and isn't to track you personally!
See our Privacy Policy for more information. Customize
Statistics cookies collect information anonymously and help us understand how our visitors use our website. We use cloud-hosted Matomo
Matomo
_pk_ses*: Counts the first visit of the user
_pk_id*: Helps not to double count the visits.
mtm_cookie_consent: Remembers that consent for storing and using cookies was given by the user.
_pk_ses*: 30 minutes
_pk_id*: 28 days
mtm_cookie_consent: 30 days