Electronic Signature Legality for Businesses in European Union

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legality for businesses in European Union

why tech companies are named as Gatekeepers when we hear the word gatekeeper we think of someone guarding the gate or someone who controls access to something for example a gatekeeper might be a bouncer at a club or someone who protects your apartment now similarly Gatekeepers can also be people or organizations that control access to a service and all these tech companies that you see they provide online virtual services that is the reason these tech companies are named as Gatekeepers because they control access to critical digital platforms and services these platforms and services are essential for businesses and consumers to operate and compete in today's digital economy earlier this month the European Union listed six tech companies as Gatekeepers the six companies are alphabet which is part of Google Apple Amazon buy dance meta and Microsoft let me also quickly tell you why these six companies are essential Gatekeepers Google controls the search engine Market which if you see is the gateway to most of the information that we get on the internet Amazon controls the e-commerce Market which is primary option for many people to shop online Apple controls the IOS app store which is the only way to distribute apps on iPhones and iPads it is said that as of 2023 approximately 18 percent of people worldwide use Apple products this includes iPhones iPads Macs and other Apple devices then Facebook today that is meta it controls the social media market and even Instagram is part of it which is the main way that people connect with each other online then Microsoft controls the operating system Market which is the windows software that runs most of our computers all these five tech Giants are based in the United States now byte dance it is a Chinese technology company that operates social media apps like Tick Tock doing and talk to your you may also be aware of the fact that after 2020 more than a dozen countries have banned Tick Tock due to privacy and security concerns despite that it has a large user base in many countries around the world and it also gives bite dance a large source of Revenue even without the US and Indian markets now if you look at the six technology companies they have a lot of power over how businesses and consumers use the internet they can decide which businesses are allowed to participate in their platforms and they can set the terms of rules and engagement this power can be used to make someone unable to compete and at the same time it can also make someone grow exponentially let me give you an example Google can favor its own products and services in search results making it harder for competitors to be found Amazon could make it difficult for sellers to list their products on its platform by charging High fees Apple could reject apps from the IOS app store that compete with their own apps Facebook and Instagram could use their data to Target their users with ads for promoting their own invested products and that can give an unfair advantage over other businesses this is nothing these Tech Giants also have the potential to both lift up and bring down the government of any country if desired they have the power to manipulate their online services algorithms in ways that could potentially influence public opinion and political outcomes for example they could promote or suppress certain content such as news articles or social media posts that is favorable or unfavorable to a particular government they can also Target users with ads that are designed to sway their opinions or encourage them to take action such as voting for a particular candidate or protesting against a government policy these tech companies can also use their platforms to spread misinformation or propaganda that could undermine public trust in a government however we cannot solely blame technology companies for this it's not like that in the end it depends on us the users what we choose to watch and what we don't and what conclusions we draw from what we see but I would also like to say that there are many people in this world who believe a lot of things they see on the internet as true look at the dichotomy a false person is also promoting their content on the internet in the guise of Truth and a truthful person is also sharing their genuine content on the internet however things are so polarized on the internet and somewhere it is because of algorithms things have become so polarized that distinguishing between truth and falsehood has become extremely challenging that's why I personally believe that these big tech companies have three options either they will manipulate their algorithms or they won't but the third option is they will polarize things to such an extent through their algorithms that an average person won't be able to draw a clear line between what is true and what is false and if you see this third option is so safe that you can't directly blame the tech companies because they will simply say we are showing everything equally but you will see that everything is not presented equally somewhere the way things are presented is changed in a way that you can manipulate a large group of people and feed your established ideology into their minds now the European commission which is the executive body of the European Union has recently passed a law called the digital markets act dma that is designed to regulate these Gatekeepers it was passed on September 14 2022 but then it became applicable for the most part on May 2nd 2023 this year now whenever any government passes a law the law is usually meant to regulate or prohibit from doing something similarly even this law the digital markets act prohibits The Gatekeepers from engaging in a number of anti-competitive practices such as number one self-preferencing this law prohibits these Gatekeepers from giving their own products or Services preferential treatment over their competitors number two tying and bundling tying means suppose you are selling a product but you put a condition of adding another product for example if you're selling a printer you will sell the printer at a lower cost if you buy the ink and other accessories together this is called tying the this is widely practiced on the internet then bundling means selling two or more products together at a single price if the price looks Attractive people often buy it and then what happens is that your personal information data is shared with the second Product Company both these product companies have discussed their profit margins behind the scenes without letting the consumer know about anything so this law prohibits Gatekeepers from doing this number three unfair trading practices these Gatekeepers often engage in unfair trading practices for example Apple could charge developers excessive fees to list their apps on the App Store so this law aims to control and curb these unfair trading practices number four access to data because of this law Gatekeepers will be required to provide access to their data to competitors on Fair reasonable and non-discriminatory terms this will allow competitors to develop new products and services that compete with those of The Gatekeepers basically this law prohibits these Gatekeepers from creating a monopoly number five interoperability this law will ensure that Gatekeepers are required to make their platforms more adaptive and interoperable with those of their competitors so that users can switch between different platforms more easily if you look at these Five Points you will soon realize that the dma law is a complex piece of legislation do you think that in the world of the internet where backend encrypted coding and algorithms are such deep technical matters the government can establish its Authority by imposing so many regulations on these five aspects this is very difficult and I don't believe that things can be as clear as black and white if the European commission is serious about these laws you know what might happen at most the government will have to fund a company that is entirely Tech based and this new company will conduct deep technical level audits of these big technical Giants now this means hiring software Engineers encoders to go and periodically audit the algorithms and codes of these Tech Giants to see how much they are manipulating only then can the government possibly establish control over these five aspects however there's also another problem this new company funded by the government might eventually become self-important and possibly start manipulating things for more profit then who is going to govern them who will audit the auditor you can see how complex this is and we will have to wait and see how the European Union implements these laws practically and what the outcomes will be now before ending this video let me say a few things if you have understood this video then naturally there will be a very important question that will pop up in your head and the question is why the European commission has drafted the digital markets at law for tech companies that are mostly based in the United States as you know Europe has powerful relations with the United States in fact United States is the big Deli for the European Union countries so why create stringent laws for U.S companies so this is where you have to understand that the European Union has over the years realized the fact that these large companies have too much power and they are using this power to manipulate competition and innovation in simple words even the European Union wants more tech companies to emerge out of Europe they are concerned about the increasing dominance of the U.S tech Giants in Europe that is the reason this law has been passed this law is designed to address this concerns by limiting the power of these Tech Giants so in simple words the European Union has good relations with the United States but it does not mean that the European Union is not willing to regulate U.S companies I will also say this with time we will also get to hear that the U.S government will interfere with the European Union's digital markets act on Tech Giants because this law will definitely affect U.S businesses the U.S government will talk on behalf of these Tech Giants and the U.S government will refuse a few of the European Union's demands this will definitely happen but as of now the U.S government has not taken any serious steps it has only expressed its concerns I hope you found this video informative thank you for watching it