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Governments can curb Big Tech’s gatekeeper power without splitting companies into separate businesses. The main alternatives are rules for designated platforms, stronger enforcement of existing competition and merger laws, and carefully designed interoperability and data-portability requirements. These approaches target conduct and barriers to competition rather than ownership—but they are policy options, not proven substitutes for structural remedies in every market.
What regulation without a breakup means
A breakup changes a company’s structure or ownership. Conduct regulation instead sets rules for how a company may use control over a platform: for example, whether it can favor its own services, restrict rivals’ access, or make it unnecessarily difficult for users to switch.
The distinction matters because a platform can be both a business and a route to customers, data, or complementary services. A regulator seeking more competition can try to make that route more contestable while leaving the company intact. Whether that works depends on the market, the rule’s design, and the regulator’s ability to enforce it. The available official assessments do not establish that conduct rules always work better than a breakup.
Three tools regulators can use
Set advance rules for designated gatekeepers
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a concrete example of an ex-ante regime: it imposes obligations on designated gatekeepers before a regulator has to prove a separate competition-law violation for each covered practice. Its rules address areas including interoperability, data access and portability, alternative distribution channels, advertising transparency, self-preferencing, and bundling or tying. The European Commission describes the DMA as complementing competition law, not replacing it.
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The DMA is an EU framework, not a global rulebook. In March 2024, the Commission said designated gatekeepers had to comply with their DMA obligations. Its scope and requirements should not be assumed to apply to every large technology company or service.
Enforce competition and merger law
Case-by-case enforcement can address conduct or deals that harm competition under existing law. Merger review is especially important for platforms because a deal may affect competition even when the buyer and target do not look like conventional direct rivals.
The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2023 Merger Guidelines, Guideline 9, describe how agencies assess mergers involving multi-sided platforms. The analysis can consider competition between platforms, competition on a platform, and competition to displace a platform. It also recognizes that an acquisition of a nascent competitor may matter. These guidelines are agency guidance for merger analysis—not a general U.S. platform conduct code or an enacted ex-ante regime.
Make switching and access more workable
Interoperability allows services or systems to work together; portability lets users transfer data between services. In principle, these measures can lower switching barriers and give complementary services a better chance to compete. They are not magic switches: a requirement must specify what information or functionality is covered, who can access it, and how access works in practice.
Privacy and security need to be addressed in that design. The Federal Trade Commission’s December 2023 commentary says it will scrutinize claims that privacy or security requires restricting interoperability, assessing whether the claims are well-founded and whether the chosen approach is tailored to minimize anticompetitive impact. That is not a direction to ignore real risks; it is a warning against treating a broad invocation of security or privacy as sufficient on its own.
How the approaches differ
| Approach | What it targets | How it operates | Key limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ex-ante gatekeeper rules | Specified platform practices and access conditions | Sets obligations for firms and services within the law’s scope; the EU DMA is an example | Rules need clear definitions, monitoring, and enforcement; the DMA is not a universal framework |
| Competition and merger enforcement | Conduct or transactions that may harm competition | Case-by-case legal analysis; DOJ Guideline 9 addresses mergers involving multi-sided platforms | Guideline 9 is merger guidance, not a comprehensive platform conduct code |
| Interoperability and portability | Barriers to switching, access, or complementary services | Requires specified systems or data to work together or be transferable | Scope, privacy safeguards, and security controls must be defined; effects depend on implementation |
What makes a conduct rule effective
Define the prohibited practice precisely
A rule against self-preferencing or unfair access needs an enforceable definition. Regulators need to be able to distinguish prohibited favoritism or discriminatory conditions from legitimate product integration, quality control, or other conduct. The DMA’s review materials describe obligations in these areas; the practical work is translating them into rules that can be monitored and applied.
Match obligations to a documented risk
Rules should identify the services and firms they cover and connect each duty to a competition problem the law is meant to address. A duty aimed at a switching barrier is different from one aimed at self-preferencing or restricted business-user access. Broad obligations without a clear target risk creating uncertainty without resolving the underlying bottleneck.
Build in technical and safety safeguards
Interoperability requirements should state what must interoperate, how access is authorized, and how privacy and security risks are managed. The FTC’s position is that restrictions justified on those grounds should be supported and tailored, rather than used as a blanket reason to foreclose competition.
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Conduct rules do not answer every question about consolidation. Platform merger analysis should account for the ways a deal could affect rivalry between services, competition among businesses using a platform, or the possibility that a new service could displace an established one. DOJ Guideline 9 provides that U.S. agency framework; it does not itself determine the outcome of any particular deal.
Review the rules as markets change
Obligations need enforcement capacity and a way to assess whether they remain appropriate as services and markets evolve. The European Commission’s 2026 first review assessed the DMA’s aims, impacts, scope, obligations, and enforcement. A regime that cannot detect noncompliance or adjust to changed conditions may fail to deliver its intended effect.
Competition rules are not online-safety rules
Competition regulation and online-safety regulation can apply to the same services, but they address different problems. The DMA is directed at fair and contestable digital markets. The EU Digital Services Act (DSA) sets duties for online services, including risk-related requirements for the largest platforms. Safety, illegal content, systemic risks, privacy, and competition can interact, but each obligation should have a defined aim and legal basis. Treating the DSA as a competition code—or the DMA as a safety law—confuses their purposes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the EU’s early DMA assessment does—and does not—show
In its 28 April 2026 review announcement, the European Commission said the DMA remained fit for purpose and reported changes including data transfer, alternatives for defaults, app stores, and messaging interoperability. Those are the Commission’s findings about the first two years of the EU law. They are evidence of reported implementation changes, not a controlled comparison with breaking up companies and not proof that the same approach will work in other jurisdictions or markets.
Best Value
The Commission’s assessment is useful for understanding how an enacted regime is being implemented. It does not settle which obligations work best across all platforms, or when a structural remedy would be preferable.
What this means for users and businesses
For consumers, the relevant questions are practical: can you move your data, use a competing service, or choose a different default without avoidable barriers? For businesses that depend on a platform, the questions include whether access conditions are fair and whether the platform’s own services receive an advantage that rivals cannot overcome. Those outcomes depend on the rules in force, the services they cover, and how regulators enforce them; the policy tools alone do not guarantee a particular result.
A defensible approach is to identify the bottleneck, choose a targeted rule or enforcement tool, specify safeguards, and review whether the measure is working. That leaves structural remedies available when conduct rules are inadequate rather than treating either regulation or breakup as the automatic answer.
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