EU takes on tech giants with tough rules to curb their power

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet unit Google face fines as much as 10% of their global turnover and break-up orders for breaching draft EU rules announced on Tuesday aimed at reining in their power.

The European Commission said its Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act are a modern rulebook aimed at fostering innovation, growth and competitiveness and provide users with better and reliable online services.

The proposed rules are targeted at online gatekeepers, companies which control data and access to their platform on which thousands of companies rely on to do business, and also large online platforms.

Gatekeepers, defined as companies with an entrenched position, with a signifant impact on the EU market and operate a core platform service, could be online search engines, social networking services, cloud computing services and advertising services, the EU executive said.

They face a list of dos and dont's aimed at stopping unfair behaviour or practices which close off markets, and will have to report proposed acquisitions to the authorities.

Large online platforms, namely companies with more than 45 million users, will have to do more to remove illegal and harmful content and also show details of political adverts on their platforms as well as the parameters used by their algorithms to rank products and services.