The European Commission has officially designated six of the market’s largest technology companies as ‘gatekeepers’, or content intermediaries, subject to new rules under the recent Digital Markets Act (LMD). Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (parent company of Google and YouTube), Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and ByteDance (parent company of TikTok) have six months to comply with the regulations set out in this designation.
“It is time for Europe to set its rules from the start and provide a clear and enforceable legal framework to promote innovation, competition and the resilience of the internal market, rather than relying on lengthy and not always effective anti-merger measures. investigations,” said Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, during a digital conference in Estonia. “LMD does exactly that.”

The Commissioner, speaking on the eve of the European Commission’s decision, explained that the designation covers multimillion-dollar technologies that connect businesses and consumers. “We will finally get their market power under control,” Breton said. “They will need to adapt their technologies and business models to give consumers more options and stop creating barriers for smaller companies with innovative technologies,” he said.

The appointment did not surprise any of the major tech companies, as they all voluntarily submitted their potential positions as ‘gatekeepers’ to the European Commission in July, following the LMD. But that doesn’t mean they completely agree. Microsoft and Apple are trying to exclude some of their services from this designation, including the Bing search engine, the Edge browser and Microsoft Advertising, and Apple’s iMessage messaging service. The European Commission has opened an investigation into these arguments and will announce its conclusion within five months.
For the time being, 22 platforms have been designated by the EC and this opens a race against time to make them comply with the rules. We’re talking about applications used by millions of people and companies, from Instagram and Messenger to YouTube, Google Maps and TikTok.

Gmail (Alphabet), Outlook (Microsoft) and Samsung Internet Browser (Samsung) were not taken into account because the European Commission accepted the companies’ counterarguments. But other services could be added next year, with Apple’s iPadOS being the subject of investigation in this regard.
Of the six tech companies, only one is not North American (China’s ByteDance) and all have increased their budgets for lobbying regulators. In the United States, years of discussions and draft laws have yielded nothing concrete, unlike what is happening in Europe.

“I think this decision should have been made much earlier,” Gerd Leonhard, technology analyst, author and CEO of The Futures Agency, based in Switzerland, told DN/DV. “These companies enjoy too much protection in the United States,” he said. Leonhard, who recently released a documentary on the impact of artificial intelligence, “LookUpNow,” has emphasized the need for more regulation of Big Tech. “These companies really are the new oil giants,” he said.

What will change

The platforms on this list will have to facilitate interoperability with services from other companies, which will be felt by consumers who are used to rigid ecosystems. For example, iPhones feature Apple’s operating system, the company’s application store, cloud services, and the Safari browser, with some barriers to diversification. This is what the Digital Markets Act aims to change with this designation, giving consumers more options regarding the services they use and making it difficult to create closed ecosystems, with high commissions (such as Apple and Google app stores).

Companies will not be able to give preference to their own products and services (a recurring accusation against Amazon, for example). They will need to provide consumers with easy ways to cancel services, change settings and uninstall apps pre-installed by brands and replace them with third-party apps. They will also have to explicitly ask users for permission to use their data in combination across different services (for example from Facebook to Instagram) and for personalized advertisements.

If regulators find that tech companies are not following the rules, the fine can increase to 10% of sales for the first violation and 20% for subsequent cases. Thierry Breton warned yesterday during a meeting with the press in Brussels that the law must be respected. “Some are of course not happy with the fact that they have been designated, but it is the law,” he emphasized. Regarding a predictable legal challenge, Breton said that “from a legal point of view, of course someone can go to court, they have that right, but until the court expresses their position, they must fulfill their obligations”, recalling the “important sanctions “.

What companies say

Alphabet, owner of Google, responded with statements to DN/Dinheiro Vivo from its head of legal, Oliver Bethell: “Over the past few months we have been working to comply with the new requirements of the Digital Markets Act and we will now today’s designation decision in its entirety,” he explained. “We will continue to work closely with the European Commission to comply with the law while providing useful and innovative services to people across Europe.”

Microsoft also sent a response emphasizing the need for further collaboration. “We accept our designation as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act and will continue to work with the European Commission to comply with the obligations imposed on Windows and LinkedIn under the LMD,” an official Microsoft source said. “We welcome the Commission’s decision to open a market investigation to consider our request to exempt Bing, Edge and Microsoft Ads – which act as market challengers – from the LMD.”

Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, indicated that it was investigating the possibilities. “We are evaluating the Commission’s appointments and will provide more information in a timely manner as we work to comply with the LMD,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to DN/DV.

Apple expressed concerns about the security and privacy risks associated with the changes the LMD will force the company to make. “Our focus will be on how we can mitigate these impacts and continue to offer the best products and services to our European customers,” he said in a statement.

Content intermediaries

The term ‘gatekeeper’ refers to platforms with a turnover equal to or greater than EUR 7.5 billion on the European market or whose market value is EUR 75 billion. They must operate in at least three Member States and register 45 million monthly active users and 10,000 annual active business users in the European Union.

Designated services:

Alphabet: Android, Chrome, Google Search, Google Maps, Google Play, Google Shopping, Google Ads, YouTube.

Amazon: Amazon marketplace, Amazon ads

Apple: App Store, Safari, iOS

ByteDans: TikTok

Goal: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Meta Marketplace, Meta Ads

Microsoft: LinkedIn, Windows PC operating system