Digital Markets Act<\/a> (DMA), the European Union\u2019s plan to curb the market power of Big Tech, now technically applies, after entering into force last November.<\/p>\nThe next major milestone is a few months out, in early fall, when the Commission will confirm which of the usual suspect tech giants will be subject to the bloc\u2019s shiny new ex ante competition regulation regime. But tech giants are facing a busy summer to prepare their regional compliance strategies.<\/p>\n
Quick recap: The DMA applies a fixed set of obligations to so-called Internet \u201cgatekeepers\u201d who meet specific, cumulative criteria: Firstly they must operate at least one \u201ccore platform service\u201d (these include online search engines, social networking services, app stores, certain messaging services, virtual assistants, web browsers, operating systems and online intermediation services).<\/p>\n
Secondly they must be of a large enough size and entrenched market position to fall under the regime. This means reporting annual revenue in the European Economic Area that hit or exceeded \u20ac7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years; or else having an average market capitalisation \u201cor equivalent fair market value\u201d that amounted to at least \u20ac75 billion in the last financial year, as well as providing a core platform service in at least three EU Member States.<\/p>\n
Gatekeepers must also be an \u201cimportant gateway for business users towards final consumers\u201d, as the Commission puts it \u2014 which the DMA considers to be the case if the company in question operates a core platform service with 45M+ monthly active end users in the EU and more than 10,000 yearly active EU business users in the last financial year.<\/p>\n
Lastly, an entrenched and durable position is presumed if the company met the other criteria in each of the last three financial years. Although the Commission may also apply a subset of DMA rules to companies it suspects will soon become gatekeepers.<\/p>\n
Certain big names will very obviously hit the DMA threshold (Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft seem entirely safe bets for being deemed gatekeepers). But we\u2019ll have to wait a few months to see if the full list contains any surprises.<\/p>\n
And on that front, European music streaming giant Spotify clearly isn\u2019t expecting to be one of them\u2026\u00a0 but, er, let\u2019s see!<\/p>\n
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