European Commission Designates Gatekeepers Under the Digital Markets Act

On September 6, 2023, the European Commission designated six companies as gatekeepers under Article 3 of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”). The new gatekeepers are Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft. Jointly, these companies provide 22 core platform services, including social networks, internet browsers, operative systems and mobile app stores.

With this designation, the European Commission has taken a key step towards practical application of the DMA.

The designated “gatekeepers” have until March 6, 2024, to comply with the new set of requirements introduced by the DMA aimed at ensuring a fair and open digital market in the EU, including:

• Allowing end users to install third-party apps and/or third-party app stores (i.e. an app store different from that which comes with the system) that use or interoperate with the gatekeeper’s operating system;
• Allowing end users to unsubscribe from the gatekeeper’s core platform services as easily as they subscribe to them;
• Providing companies that advertise on a gatekeeper’s platform with access to the gatekeeper’s performance measuring tools and information necessary to allow advertisers and publishers to conduct their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper;
• A ban on using the data of a business user (meaning a natural or legal person acting in a commercial or professional capacity using core platform services) if the gatekeeper competes with the business user on the gatekeeper’s own platform;
• A ban on ranking the gatekeeper’s own products or services more favorably compared to those of third parties hosted on the gatekeeper’s own platform; and
• A ban on tracking end users outside of the gatekeepers’ core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising without obtaining appropriate consent.

In addition, gatekeepers must submit a detailed compliance report outlining the measures they have implemented to comply with the DMA within six months of their designation.

Read the official text of the DMA.

Read Questions and Answers on the DMA.

Read the European Commission’s press release .

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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