Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal MarketEuropean industry chief Thierry Breton said on Tuesday that Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft have notified the European Commission that they are eligible to be guardians under new tech rules. the EU.
Under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that came into force last November, companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and a market capitalization of 75 billion euros are considered gatekeepers who provide a service essential platform.
Samsung owner Breton and TikTok ByteDance also said they were within EU limits.
“Europe is completely revamping its digital space to better protect EU citizens and promote innovation for EU start-ups and businesses,” Breton said in a statement.
The committee will confirm the appointment of the guardian by September 6 after verifying the declarations submitted by the companies. They will then have six months to comply with the DMA rules.
Booking.com said it expects to reach the gatekeeper threshold by the end of the year and will then notify the EU executive.
Companies designated as gatekeepers will be required to make their messaging apps work with competitors and allow users to decide which apps come pre-installed on their devices.
They would not be allowed to favor their own services over those of their competitors or prevent users from removing pre-installed software or apps, two rules that would hit Google and Apple hard.
Companies can be fined up to 10% of annual global sales volume for Direct Market Access (DMA) violations.
