Tech giant’s ‘gatekeepers’ must comply with all new EU digital market rules

Seven companies, mostly made up of American tech giants, have notified the European Commission that they meet the criteria to be classified as “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok owner, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung said they meet EU thresholds when it adopted the new law. According ReutersBooking.com also plans to achieve gatekeeper status by the end of the year and will notify authorities by then.

Gatekeepers are companies with an annual turnover in Europe of at least €7.5 billion ($8.16 billion) in the last three financial years or those with a fair market value of at least at least 75 billion euros ($81.6 billion) in the last financial year in at least three EU member states. They must also have served over 45 million monthly active end users and over 10,000 annually active business users in the EU for the past three years. These criteria were designed to include the biggest players in the field, since, as the name of the law suggests, it is intended to cover large online platforms that act as “gatekeepers” in digital markets.

Under DMA, gatekeepers will be prohibited from favoring their own services over those of their rivals and locking users into their ecosystem. They must allow third parties to interoperate with their own services. They should also allow business users to promote their products/services and “contract with their customers outside of the gatekeepers’ platform”. In the case of Google and Apple, this means that they cannot prevent developers from using payment systems different from their own. Companies also cannot prohibit users from removing pre-installed apps or downloading apps from outside sources. This will mean huge changes for Apple in particular, whose ecosystem was designed as a “walled garden” for a very long time. Last December, Bloomberg reported that Apple is preparing to allow third-party app stores and sideloading with the release of iOS 17.

All gatekeepers will be required to comply with all aspects of the DMA in 2024. For now, European authorities will review submissions and designate gatekeepers for specific platform services by September 6.