Consent management is important for digital marketing. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is making it even more crucial for brands and organizations.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the website owner or business operator is responsible for how they collect and process users’ personal data. However, the DMA transfers these responsibilities to big tech companies—designated as gatekeepers by the European Commission—to promote fair competition and safeguard user privacy.
Gatekeepers subject to the Digital Markets Act must obtain explicit consent for collection and usage of European citizens’ personal data on their core platform services (CPS), for operations such as advertising, search, etc.
Noncompliance with the obligations of the DMA can result in enormous fines of up to 10% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover for gatekeepers, or up to 20% for repeated infringement.
To avoid these penalties, these companies may impose additional requirements on their customers and partners (consumers and third-party businesses) for consent-based data in order to continue using their services. Many companies rely on gatekeepers platforms for access to enormous audiences and customer bases, data, and, by extension, to generate revenue.
In this article, we explore why compliant consent management is vital under the DMA.
Understanding consent management
First things first, it’s important to answer the basic question: what is consent management?
Consent management is the cornerstone of data protection and privacy compliance. It encompasses everything that happens from when a company requests a user’s consent to collect and use their data, to when that consent information is stored or used to signal receipt of consent to the company’s marketing tools, partners (like the gatekeepers) or data protection authorities.
Consent management enables businesses to obtain, store, and manage user consent in a secure and compliant manner, ideally in a way that is flexible for any and all data privacy regulations applicable to the company’s operations.
With the Digital Markets Act in place, having a robust consent management platform is essential for businesses to demonstrate DMA compliance to gatekeepers and avoid penalties and loss of brand reputation.
Why consent management is essential under the Digital Markets Act (DMA)
1. Compliance with prescribed data use practices
The Digital Markets Act emphasizes fair and transparent data use practices. These require businesses to obtain explicit opt-in consent from users before collecting or using their personal data.
Consent management helps to ensure that your business complies with privacy regulations like the GDPR and DMA and avoid penalties and loss of user trust – for businesses, in the case of GDPR, and for the gatekeepers, in regards to DMA.
2. User rights and data privacy
The Digital Markets Act aims to further protect consumers’ data privacy and provide greater user rights and choice.
Consent management enables users to have control over their personal data so they can choose which cookies and other tracking technologies they accept, as well as change their privacy settings in the future.
3. Leveling the playing competitive field
The Digital Markets Act works to level the business playing field for smaller organizations by regulating large online platforms or “gatekeepers”. The law aims to foster more fair business practices, greater transparency in operations, and foster innovation and competition.
Consent management helps smaller organizations meet the required obligations and so they can continue to compete in digital markets.
4. Credibility and trust
Consent management platforms provide detailed information to users about how companies handle user data; how users’ online behavior is tracked; the purposes for tracking; and what data is collected from it. Users have consent choices based on being informed.
By prioritizing compliance and transparency, you can establish credibility and trust with your audiences.
Usercentrics: the best consent management platform (CMP) to get you ready for the Digital Markets Act
Usercentrics is the leading Website Consent Management Platform (CMP) and Mobile App Consent solution, trusted around the world and across industries. We have a customer retention rate over 99%, and more than 2.2 million websites in 195 countries use Usercentrics every day. 6.7 billion monthly consents are processed through our platform.
Usercentrics web and app consent solutions streamline the consent collection process, helping to ensure DMA compliance as well as with other data protection laws.
With Usercentrics, you get the highest level of data protection and can easily:
- customize consent banners to your branding
- tailor consent requests to specific regulations and data processing activities
- create an audit trail in case of an data protection audit or complaint
- deliver more control over personal data and consent to your web and app usersMaintain a transparent and user-centric approach to data privacy
Achieving Digital Markets Act privacy compliance to build user trust
By implementing Usercentrics CMP to get ready for the DMA, you can demonstrate your organization’s commitment to data protection and privacy. Usercentrics provides comprehensive documentation that helps you navigate DMA privacy requirements and also the obligations of other regulations.
This not only helps to achieve and maintain privacy compliance, but also helps to build trust among your users, who feel more confident in sharing their data with a brand that prioritizes their privacy, knowing their consent is respected through the digital ecosystem.
Conclusion and next steps with the Digital Markets Act
We’re well into the era of data privacy regulations. Laws like the DMA can even be seen as a second generation of thought and regulation to protect and manage personal data and consent while enabling the digital ecosystem to grow and innovate.
“The ability to prioritize privacy compliance and transparency will determine winners and losers in the global online marketplace. You either protect and bolster your reputation and build trust with your customers by achieving compliance and pursuing privacy best practices, or risk being overshadowed by early privacy adopters in your niche that will wield their competitive advantage.”
– Celestine Bahr, International data privacy expert and Director Legal, Compliance & Data Privacy at Usercentrics
With Usercentrics as your consent management platform, you can simplify the process, achieve compliance, and create your user-centric approach to data privacy.
