The Digital Markets Act (DMA) – which is underpinned by competition law - allows access to third parties to data previously held only by ‘Gatekeepers’, namely, large digital platforms, such as Google or Facebook. 

There are (at least) four data types that are foreseen to generate new business models and new products/services:

• User data, specifically real-time aggregated and non-aggregated, including personal data – this will enable advertisers and their agents to analyse in detail data relevant to viewers of their adverts
• Search data, namely, query, click and view data of end users of a Gatekeeper’s search engine – this will enable advertisers to place adverts more accurately on relevant webpages
• Key pricing metrics, namely, what the Gatekeeper paid to the publisher, and what the Gatekeeper was paid by the advertiser per advert on a daily basis – this will enable the comparison of competitors services with that of the Gatekeeper
• Gatekeeper performance measuring tools and the data used – this will empower advertisers and publishers to verify the Gatekeeper’s performance and to undertake their own analysis

To benefit from the DMA, advertisers and publishers should begin to both plan and act. 

Determining the key business and legal issues and the timeline will be important. Examples of issues are determining what type of data would be of value, what price are you prepared to pay for it, whether you are equipped to receive and analyse the data and what, if any, data compliance safeguards need to be put in place.  It may be foreseen that the Gatekeepers will be unwilling counterparties, so negotiating terms and conditions, and in some cases the price to pay, may be challenging, and legal advice may be necessary to help ‘unlock’ the data. 

For a related article on this subject see: The Digital Markets Act - strategy reboot for online advertising (shoosmiths.co.uk)