Codes, not laws: The twist in Australia's Big Tech crackdown
Australia may be leading the world on reining in Big Tech - but it is doing it very differently to other jurisdictions.
It's been said that Australia is leading the world when it comes to regulating the giants of the global tech sector. But that effort has largely been built around codes of conduct rather than hard legislation. And lawyers working for both the tech industry and regulators say that is not necessarily a bad thing.
In Europe, two major pieces of law have been put in place to regulate tech giants this year: the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act. These laws install new rules for certain "gatekeeper platforms", such as outlawing anything that stops users from uninstalling pre-installed software or apps, and new online safety requirements.
The UK also recently passed sweeping online safety laws designed to achieve similar outcomes.
In Australia, regulators have been more focused on using codes of conduct to rein in big tech companies. It's now a year since the ACCC called for mandatory service-specific codes to address its competition concerns with Big Tech.
