TOTM
Implementing the EU’s Digital Markets Act: The Seen and the Unseen
Truth on the Market
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The focus of the European Commission’s recently published second annual enforcement report on the Digital Markets Act (DMA) was, as expected, on what has been achieved. The report celebrates the concrete, measurable steps the Commission has taken to rein in “gatekeeper” platforms: investigations launched, compliance workshops held, remedies imposed.
These are the seen effects—the visible indicators of action, the metrics that suggest progress (or, at least, movement). But as the 19th century French economist Frédéric Bastiat might remind us, there are also the unseen effects: the costs, tradeoffs, and unintended consequences that do not show up in press releases or enforcement statistics, but which may matter just as much.