Digital Services Act and Your Customer Data: The Future of Digital Marketing and Customer Experience Will Be Highly Regulated

This IDC Perspective discusses digital service regulations. The European Commission published its proposals for the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) in December 2020, kicking off a paradigm shift in the regulation of online platforms in the European Union (EU). The DSA applies to all digital platform or service providers with end users in the European Union, regardless of the size of the user base or the location of that company's base of operations."Don't ignore these regulations," says Heather Hershey, research director for Worldwide Digital Commerce at IDC. "Prepare for a digital arms race that will be more dramatic than what you experienced when GDPR was rolled out. This series of regulatory steps is meant to be deliberately disruptive of the status quo on digital marketplaces and platforms. Indeed, the most profound impact may be felt by professionals in the field of digital marketing in the EU. The most agile and visionary companies will embrace this as an opportunity. After all, that is also an intended impact of this broad-sweeping regulation: The EU is fighting a de facto battle against U.S. software dominance - among other things - to nudge homegrown software companies to become the marketing and commerce platforms of tomorrow."