WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE REGULATION?
The regulation aims to guarantee a competitive and fair digital sector, allowing innovative digital businesses to grow and ensuring the safety of users online, through:
- clear obligations and prohibitions for large online platforms;
- better services and fairer prices for consumers;
- promoting innovation and a fairer online platform environment for technology start-ups;
- giving business users the ability to offer consumers greater choice;
- banning unfair practices on large online platforms.
KEY POINTS
The regulation designates certain large online platforms as ‘gatekeepers’ if they:
- have an annual turnover of a minimum of €7.5 billion in the European Union (EU) in the previous 3 years, or a market valuation of at least €75 billion;
- have at least 45 million monthly end users and at least 10,000 business users established in the EU;
- control one or more core platform services in at least three EU Member States;
- have a strong economic position and significant impact on the internal market;
- provide a core platform service, which is an important gateway for business users to reach customers;
- have an entrenched and durable position in the market, either now or in the near future.
Core platform services include, among other things:
- marketplaces
- app stores
- search engines
- social media
- cloud services
- advertising.
Gatekeepers must:
- allow third parties to interoperate with the gatekeeper’s services in some specific situations;
- allow their business users to access the data generated while using the gatekeeper’s platform;
- allow their business users to promote their product offering and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform;
- provide tools and information to companies who advertise on their platform to carry out independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper.
Gatekeepers must not:
- treat the gatekeeper’s own services and products more favourably in ranking than similar offerings by third parties on the platform;
- track end users outside the gatekeeper’s core platform service to target advertising without consent;
- prevent developers from using third-party payment platforms for app sales;
- process users’ personal data for targeted advertising, unless consent is granted;
- pre-install certain software applications or prevent users from easily uninstalling them.
Compliance
The European Commission is the sole enforcer of the regulation, with an advisory committee and a high-level group set up to assist and facilitate its work.
When a large online company is identified as a gatekeeper, it has to comply with the rules of the regulation within 6 months.
If a gatekeeper violates the rules laid down in the regulation, it risks:
- a fine of up to 10% of its total worldwide turnover;
- a potential fine of up to 20% of its worldwide turnover for repeat offences;
- periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of its average daily turnover;
- non-financial structural remedies such as the selling-off of (parts of) its business, as a last resort for systematic failure to comply.
Implementing act
- Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/814 sets out detailed rules for the conduct of certain proceedings by the Commission in implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1925. These relate to aspects such as notification and submissions to the Commission, the opening of proceedings, the right to be heard, access to files, time limits and the transmission and receipt of documents.
- There are two annexes to Regulation (EU) 2023/814:
- the first is a form relating to the notification for the purposes of gatekeeper designation (form GD) – information about the notifying undertaking, core platform services, quantitative thresholds, along with the declaration to be signed by or on behalf of the notifying undertaking (Annex I); and
- the second includes the format and length of documents to be submitted to the Commission under Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 (Annex II) – this annex covers documents such as notifications, submissions of information, substantiated arguments, reasoned requests and replies to preliminary findings.
Amended directives
The regulation also amends two directives:
- Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of EU law (see summary);
- Directive (EU) 2020/1828 on the protection of the collective interests of consumers (see summary).
FROM WHEN DOES THE REGULATION APPLY?
It has applied since 2 May 2023.
BACKGROUND
The Digital Markets Act is part of a package that also includes the Digital Services Act (see summary).
For further information, see:
MAIN DOCUMENT
Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector and amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Digital Markets Act) (OJ L 265, 12.10.2022, pp. 1–66).
RELATED DOCUMENTS
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/814 of 14 April 2023 on detailed arrangements for the conduct of certain proceedings by the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 102, 17.4.2023, pp. 6–19).
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) (OJ L 277, 27.10.2022, pp. 1–102).
Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing Directive 2009/22/EC (OJ L 409, 4.12.2020, pp. 1–27).
Successive amendments to Directive (EU) 2020/1828 have been incorporated into the original text. This consolidated version is of documentary value only.
Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (OJ L 305, 26.11.2019, pp. 17–56).
See consolidated version.
