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Apple’s App Store, Google Search, TikTok and WhatsApp are among nearly two dozen digital services that Brussels said on Wednesday must comply with new European rules aimed at taming Big Tech.
The first list of “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act, which comes into force on Wednesday, includes six of the world’s largest technology companies: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta, based in the US, and China’s ByteDance, which owns TikTok.
Among other things, everyone must share data with competitors and make their services interoperable with competitors or face fines running into billions, Brussels announced on Wednesday after months of preparation. The new law is intended to strengthen competition in the technology sector in Europe.
The 22 services designated as gatekeepers also include Apple’s iPhone operating system and the Safari web browser; Metas Instagram and Messenger; Google’s App Store, Maps and YouTube; and Amazon’s marketplace and advertising businesses. However, Samsung avoided being classified as a gatekeeper after it objected to its qualification.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, is still considering whether to include Apple’s iMessage and three Microsoft services – Bing search, Edge browser and Microsoft Advertising – after pushback from the companies, two people with knowledge of the matter said familiar people.
EU regulators will now launch an investigation to determine whether these additional Apple and Microsoft services should be covered by the new legislation. Separately, the commission will take a year to decide whether Apple’s iPad operating system should also be part of the list, although it has not received an official statement from Apple.
Under the law, so-called gatekeepers must have an annual turnover of more than 7.5 billion euros, a market value of more than 75 billion euros and 45 million active monthly users in the EU, although EU regulators have discretion over the designation beyond these metrics . Based on these criteria, Samsung successfully argued that its web browser for smartphones, Samsung Internet, should not be subject to the new rules, EU officials said.
Microsoft has stated that Bing should not be subject to the same obligations as its larger competitor, Google Search. Apple has also argued that iMessage doesn’t have the numbers needed to fall within the scope of the new rules.
The Commission is already prepared for legal challenges from some of these big tech companies, several people with knowledge of the EU’s thinking said.
New obligations for tech giants come into force from Wednesday, including a requirement to inform the commission if they plan to buy a competitor and the creation of a compliance function.
But they have six months to prove they are complying with the rest of the rules, including a legal requirement to ask users for consent if companies want to merge data from different services such as Instagram and Facebook, and a ban on assessing their own data Highlight products and services over the competition on their platforms or marketplaces.
By March next year, these companies will also have to publish a compliance report to show how they are complying with the law. Those violating the new legislation could be fined up to 10 percent of their global turnover, but have the option to appeal.
Details of the services covered by the new rules were revealed as Margrethe Vestager, a former competition commissioner, became the official candidate for president of the European Investment Bank. Belgian Commissioner Didier Reynders will take over her competition portfolio while she takes unpaid leave from the Commission.
New obligations for technology companies also come at a time when their actions in Europe are facing greater scrutiny. Vestager threatened to break up Google this year and the EU will block Booking’s takeover of Etraveli as regulators take a closer look at the tech deals.