- Apple and 6 other tech giants have notified the European Commission that they meet the criteria of the Digital Markets Act
- This new legislation targets large platforms that serve as online intermediaries
- It includes new rules aimed at making the digital market fairer in the EU
As you may already know, the European Union is preparing to apply theDigital Markets Actor legislation on digital markets. As the European Commission has often shown, large tech players sometimes tend to abuse their dominant positions to favor their products and services, to the detriment of those of third-party developers. And the DMA aims precisely to prevent these practices and to ensure a fair digital market. To achieve this, the EU is imposing new rules for large online platforms, called “gatekeepers”.
And Apple, given its size, will be concerned. In a tweet, European Commissioner Thierry Breton announced that 7 companies have notified the European Commission that they meet the criteria to be designated as access controllers. These companies are:
- Alphabet
- Amazon
- Apple
- ByteDance
- Meta
- Microsoft
- Samsung
What is an access controller?
On its website, the European Commission explains that the criteria for qualifying an online platform as a gatekeeper are met when it occupies a strong economic position in the EU, when it occupies a strong intermediation position. (intermediary between users and companies) and when it occupies a solid and lasting position. Apple, obviously, meets these criteria. And this is why the Cupertino company notified the European Commission.
From now on, the Commission will process these 7 files, then officially designate the companies. Once the designations are official, access controllers will have 6 months to comply with the new DMA rules. And as far as Apple is concerned, they could have significant consequences for its products and services.
Indeed, the DMA could, for example, putend of certain restrictionsthat the Cupertino company imposes on developers of applications for iOS. And at the same time, legislation could force the Cupertino company to authorize the download of applications that do not come from the App Store.
Otherwise, it should be noted that the list of access controllers could still grow. The TechCrunch site indicates, for example, that the Booking.com platform does not reach the thresholds that would make it a gatekeeper, but that these thresholds could be exceeded at the end of the year.
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By : Keleops AG
