Alex Omenye
Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft have alerted the European Commission that they qualify as gatekeepers, according to EU industry director Thierry Breton.
Under the new EU IT regulations, companies with a market capitalization of 75 billion euros and more than 45 million monthly active users are regarded as gatekeepers offering a fundamental platform service under the Digital Markets Act, which went into effect last November.
Breton noted that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and Samsung both claimed to meet the EU standards.
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.”
After reviewing the information given by the companies, the Commission will confirm the gatekeeper designation by September 6.
After that, they will have six months to adhere to DMA regulations. By the end of the year, according to Booking, it should reach the gatekeeper barrier, at which point it will inform the EU executive.
Gatekeeper companies will have to make their messaging apps work with rivals and give customers the option to choose which apps to pre-install on their smartphones.
They would be prohibited from favoring their own services over those of competitors or from forbidding customers from uninstalling pre-installed software or apps, two measures that will severely hurt Google and Apple.
For DMA infractions, businesses can be penalized up to 10% of their yearly global turnover.
