Seven corporations, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook-owner Meta, and Microsoft, claim to fit the EU’s new “gatekeeper” criterion, which calls for them to adhere to stricter regulations, according to EU industry director Thierry Breton on Tuesday.
Although TikTok contested its inclusion on the list, Samsung and TikTok’s owner ByteDance suddenly said they would meet the requirements. Booking.com stated that it anticipated next year falling under the gatekeeper classification.
Companies with a market capitalization of $75 billion ($82 billion) and more than 45 million monthly active users are regarded as gatekeepers offering a fundamental platform service under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) of the European Union, which took effect in November.
Companies identified as such will be expected to allow customers to choose which applications to pre-install on their smartphones and to make their messaging apps work with rivals.
They won’t be permitted to prioritize their own services above those of competitors or forbid users from uninstalling pre-installed software or apps, two measures that will severely hurt Google and Apple.
Breton stated in a statement that “Europe is completely reorganizing its digital space to both better protect EU citizens and enhance innovation for EU startups and companies.”
For DMA infractions, businesses can be penalized up to 10% of their yearly global turnover.
The DMA rules’ primary online services offered by the corporations were not specifically listed by the European Commission.
Following verifying the information supplied by the businesses, they will certify the gatekeeper designation by September 6; following that, they will have six months to adhere to the DMA regulations.
TikTok claims that while it satisfies the DMA’s quantitative criteria, it falls short of the general standards outlined in the rule, which demand that a gatekeeper have an “unavoidable platform to conducting online business in the EU” and be an “entrenched” gateway between customers and enterprises.
By the end of the year, according to Booking.com, it should have reached the gatekeeper level and would then inform the EU executive. Prior to Monday’s notification to the Commission, it didn’t reach the required quantitative level because of the epidemic.
