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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Norwegian Consumer Council has published a new report, Breaking Free: Pathways to a fair technological future [forbrukerradet.no], about countering big tech's growing abuse of its increasingly concentrated power. The 100-page PDF is accompanied by two cover letters, one in English to various EU/EEA/UK and US institutions, and one in Norwegian to Norwegian authorities. The report starts with the problem of platform decay now known colloquially as enshittification [newyorker.com]. One change is the demand for action to be taken proactively:

Traditional competition tools are ex-post and focused on the abuse of market dominance by individual companies. The drives of enshittification cannot always be linked to one dominant company’s abuse of its dominance. When enforcement relies on established harms rather than potential market disruptions, it will often also be too late – either because the digital market has already been skewed in big tech companies’ favor or because big tech can argue that the case is no longer relevant.

The New Competition Tool allows authorities to investigate more general market failures that could potentially lead to future lock-in effects and implement interim measures before any harms have materialised. It gives competition authorities more flexibility when it comes to which services and practices can be investigated, and would allow them to investigate some of the drivers of enshittification, such as lock-in effects. In Norway, Germany and the UK, competition authorities already have such powers. These powers should be extended to other authorities, including to the European Commission.

However, the keys to platform independence, open standards (to include file formats and protocols), only get mentioned in passing. Albeit the goal of open standards, interoperability (whether cooperative or adversarial), does get more coverage.

Via Louis Rossmann Norweigan Government comes out swinging on enshittification [yewtu.be] (also on Odysee [odysee.com]) who discusses the Norwegian Consumer Council's 4-minute hard hitting video on the scope of the problem [yewtu.be].

Previously:
(2026) A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet [soylentnews.org]
(2025) As Internet Enshittification Marches On, Here are Some of the Worst Offenders [soylentnews.org]
(2024) Cory Doctorow Has a Plan to Wipe Away the Enshittification of Tech [soylentnews.org]
(2023) Enshittification Everywhere. Your Car, Your Phone, Your Tractor, Your Computer... [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission