This is further crippled by how the increasingly tight security measures in Android make harder and harder to add functionality that is considered "system-level" and is as deeply integrated as the Play Store.
You can't simply install F-droid and expect the same level of user friendliness and automatic app updates as in the official Play Store. Without esoteric, hackish and warranty-voiding rooting methods, you need to give manual user confirmation for every small update. You need to update 30 apps that accumulated because you forgot to manually update each of them? get prepared for going 30 times thought the same process of pressing buttons and giving confirmation for each of them.
If your grocery store "willfully acquired or maintained monopoly power by engaging in anticompetitive conduct".. then you'd be actively and purposefully affecting the ability for anyone to "try to build an alternative to compete with [it]".
They aren't asking Google to use a specific price, what they are asking is for them to stop offering special custom-made deals under the table for some of the partners with the intent of preventing competition. Nobody is stopping Google from offering the same fees to everyone indiscriminately... the issue is when they pick and choose with the purpose of minimizing/discouraging competition. Particularly when they are already the biggest one in their market by a wide margin, so they have a higher power/responsibility than a Mom'n'Pop store.
Would it help turning on the setting to have the links always open in a new tab?
It's been a long time since I used ddg, but I believe they have the option in their settings page, most search engines do.
Will you be informed and asked confirmation before the page is loaded?
I mean, even for self-signed/invalid certificates, most browsers allow you to optionally access the page anyway... it'll show some error page first, but it'll allow you to load it if you explicitly request to continue in the error page itself, right? and you'll get an eye-catching red icon indicating the website is untrusted... why can't browsers implement something similar to that? Just use a different icon and a different page/dialog to opt-in on first visit. Something that isn't as strong as the error page, but that makes it clear to the user which organization/government is responsible for authorizing the access.
But then again... why not simply have that website registered under .id.eu (for example) and have the EU use that DNS for registering/signing subdomains using eIDAS certificates? then there would be no risk for it to potentially poison other top-level domains if it's compromised. And imho, it would be great if when a citizen gets their eIDAS certificate it comes with a personal domain that they can freely use.
I feel I'm not fully understanding here neither what exactly is being asked nor the purpose for asking it.
Is there some more clear and unbiased information on this? ...the way they wanna call it "secret" is also very confusing to me, that smells of FUD... in which way is it "secret"? are there no public details about the request? "secret legislation" feels almost like an oximoron. I feel that what they want to say is that the controversial sections were introduced very late in the process, following some closed-door meetings, but that's no the same thing as the legislation being "secret"...
So, while I'm very skeptical that the result will be satisfactory, I'm very curious to see what will Whatsapp come up with when the deadline hits, because, allegedly, they are already working on it.
With the new European regulations Whatapp will soon be forced to offer some compatibility towards 3rd party apps, so there are chances that perhaps bridging in this way will become easier in the near future, or at least have some level of official support. But we won't know for certain how will it work until it happens. All we know is that Whatsapp is currently working on a way for 3rd parties to connect with them.
Personally, I'd hold for a bit to see where does that go and then decide what method to use.