Tech Giants Apply to EU Commission as Gatekeeper Companies Under DMA Law: Interoperability and Regulations Explained

Seven big tech companies have indicated to the European Commission that they meet the ‘gatekeepers’ thresholds under the DMA law. These gatekeeper companies must enable interoperability next year, among other things.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung have applied to the European Commission, says European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton. By 6 September at the latest, the European Commission will indicate whether these companies are actually gatekeepers and whether there are other companies that meet the conditions.

Gatekeeper companies are companies with an annual turnover of at least EUR 7.5 billion and more than 45 million monthly active European users. These companies also have to manage “important ports” such as app stores, search engines, social networks and cloud services. The companies had to report no later than Monday 3 July if they meet these conditions.

Companies that are seen as gatekeepers by the EU must enable interoperability so that third parties can operate on the gatekeeper’s services. An example is that users of one chat app can have conversations with users on another chat app, provided one of those chat apps belongs to a gatekeeper. The law does not oblige such interoperability, the law only states that such interoperability must be possible.

It should also be possible for external companies to offer offers and contracts to customers on a gatekeeper’s platform. Gatekeepers are also not allowed to offer their own products and services more favorably than competitors’ products or services. Gatekeeper products should also allow users to remove pre-installed software.

These measures will take effect no later than March 2024. Under the DMA, about which Tweakers previously wrote a background article, companies can receive fines of up to ten percent of global turnover. Companies may also eventually be forced to divest business units. The Commission wants to use market surveys to check whether the gatekeeper list is up to date.

2023-07-04 16:12:50
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