Yesterday, Monday 3 July, was the deadline for large, systemic digital platforms to notify the Commission that they meet the thresholds to qualify as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The companies, operating on our EU digital market, who declared meeting the thresholds are:
· Alphabet
· Amazon
· Apple
· ByteDance
· Meta
· Microsoft
· Samsung
We will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September (within 45 working days from their submission).
And then, gatekeepers will have 6 months to comply with the DMA rules:
- They will no longer be able to lock in users in their ecosystem.
- They will no longer be able to decide which apps you need to have pre-installed on your devices; which app store you have to use.
- They will not be able to "self-preference": exploiting the advantage of being the gatekeeper by treating their own products and services more favorably.
- Their messaging apps will have to interoperate with others.
And so on…
Consumers will have more services to choose from, more opportunities to switch providers, and will benefit from better prices and higher quality services.
Innovative companies will no longer be prevented from reaching new customers.
Because with great power comes great responsibility – and impeccable behaviour.
That is what the DMA is all about.
With the Digital Markets Act, together with the Digital Services Act and the Data Act – and soon with the AI Act, Europe is completely reorganising its digital space to both better protect EU citizens and enhance innovation for EU startups and companies!
