An open internet where people can freely build, share, and remix each other's work is a powerful engine of grassroots innovation we’ve all benefited from. In recent decades, however, corporations have taken control of an increasing share of this work, giving them a greater ability to stifle challengers and limit our choices. When regulators address this by mandating that tech giants play fair by requiring interoperability, the gatekeepers respond with a tired refrain: Playing fair puts users’ security at risk.
Unfortunately for these trillion-dollar companies, this
gotcha
isn’t the end of the conversation. Regulators can ensure that meaningful choice
and
security thrive.
Lawmakers have been catching up, recognizing that the best way to rein in big tech is to require these
oligopolies
to open up their platforms to independent developers. As we
explained six years ago
, mandating interoperability helps prevent the misuse of people’s data and enables more privacy-respecting alternatives. Tech giants, in contrast, have been arguing that our data is safer when they have exclusive control.
Tech Giants Claim Interoperability Means Insecurity
The European Union’s
Digital Markets Act
(DMA) put interoperability into law under Article 6(7): “gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with” a designated
Core Platform Service
they operate. The language describes an unambiguous requirement to remediate vendor lockouts and anti-competitive behavior of the major service operators—it is not optional.
Apple
claimed
that enforcing this obligation in mobile app stores would put their customers at risk and do irreparable harm to trust in their brand. It’s an argument reminiscent of Apple’s fight against the
right to repair
, and in both instances the company is fighting to maintain its restrictive ecosystem to stop people from finding better deals elsewhere. Apple has long cultivated a more
