Episode 1 - Rupprecht Podszun, Oles Andriychuk and Kena Zheng - DMA Review Consultation 2025

Hosted by Dr. Anush Ganesh, this episode features SCiDA co-chairs Professor Rupprecht Podszun (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) and Professor Oles Andriychuk (University of Exeter), along with Dr. Kena Zheng (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf), discussing their response to the DMA review consultation. In this episode, the team examines the first two years of DMA practice and explores critical gaps in enforcement, particularly around AI and cloud services. They discuss why major players like Nvidia, OpenAI, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud haven't been designated despite meeting quantitative criteria, and propose AI services as a new core platform service category. The conversation delves into Google's controversial European Search Dataset Licensing Program and the underutilization of Article 6(11) data access provisions. The guests debate the DMA's "iterative journey" approach to compliance versus achieving immediate contestability, and examine the tension between stakeholder-driven enforcement and regulatory dialogue with gatekeepers. The SCiDA team engaged in extensive internal debate on several aspects discussed in this episode, particularly around compliance philosophy and enforcement approaches, reflecting the complexity of regulating digital markets effectively. Time stamps 00:00-07:30 - Introduction to SCiDA and the DMA consultation 2025 07:30-24:00- Effectiveness of the DMA + Inclusion of AI services 24:00-29:30- Data access and Article 6(11) DMA 29:30-40:00- Compliance and Regulatory Dialogue 40:00-43:30- Decentralized approach 43:30-53:44- Final comments and way forward