DMA Output Indicators

The goal of the obligations introduced by the Digital Markets Act (DMA) is to influence the conduct of gatekeepers and, by doing so, reach the overarching objectives of contestability and fairness in the digital markets. The success of the DMA will, however, not only depend on whether gatekeepers comply with the rules, but also on whether users and third parties will take advantage of the new opportunities that the obligations foresee.

Compliance will be monitored with the help of compliance reports that the gatekeepers need to hand in to the enforcer of the regulation, the European Commission. The authors of the latest CERRE Tech, Media, and Telecom draft issue paper, Richard Feasey and Alexandre de Streel, propose that the Commission also requires gatekeepers to report against a common set of so-called ‘output indicators’. These indicators, alongside other evidence, should contribute to the assessment of whether the gatekeeper has complied with the relevant obligations.

Output indicators are intended to capture both the extent to which conduct by the gatekeeper has created new opportunities for firms or users and also the extent to which firms or users have engaged with those opportunities with respect to a particular gatekeeper.

It is desirable that all stakeholders – the Commission, gatekeepers, and third parties – agree on a common set of output indicators that will allow for comparison or benchmarking between gatekeepers regarding a certain Core Platform Service. However, the authors emphasise that output indicators, by themselves, are not determinative of compliance with the provisions of the DMA; instead, they should be only considered alongside other pieces of evidence, such as qualitative survey results or A/B testing.

This draft issue paper is part of a larger CERRE project entitled ‘CERRE Forum on the Digital Markets Act Compliance’. A list of concrete output indicators for DMA obligations under Articles 5, 6, and 7 will be published in September 2023. Afterwards, the project will continue with its second phase, delving deep into certain groups of obligations, and focusing on the technical principles of implementation.