Seven companies including Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp say they meet the EU’s new criteria of “gatekeeper” that means they have to meet tougher rules, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said yesterday.
Samsung Electronics Co and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) also unexpectedly said they would meet the criteria, although TikTok disputed whether it should be included on the list. Booking.com said it expected to fall into the gatekeeper category next year.
Under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which came into force in November last year, companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and a 75 billion euro (US$81.75 billion) market capitalization are considered gatekeepers providing a core platform service.
Photo: Reuters
Companies labeled as such are required to make their messaging apps interoperate with rivals and allow users to decide which apps to pre-install on their devices.
They would not be allowed to favor their own services over rivals’ or prevent users from removing pre-installed software or apps — two rules that would hit Google and Apple hard.
“Europe is completely reorganizing its digital space to both better protect EU citizens and enhance innovation for EU start-ups and companies,” Breton said in a statement.
Companies can be fined up to 10 percent of annual global turnover for DMA contraventions.
The European Commission did not provide details of the companies’ core online services subject to DMA rules.
It is to confirm the gatekeeper designation by Sept. 6 after checking the data provided by the companies, which would then have six months to comply with the DMA rules.
TikTok said that while it meets the DMA’s quantitative criteria, it falls short of the overall requirements set out under the rule which requires a gatekeeper to have an “unavoidable platform to conducting online business in the EU” and be an “entrenched” gateway between consumers and businesses.
Booking.com said it expected to meet the gatekeeper threshold by the end of the year and would then notify the EU executive. It fell short of the quantitative threshold ahead of Monday’s notification to the commission due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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