Skip to main content
European Commission logo
enen
Business, Economy, Euro
Digital Markets Act (DMA)
News announcement6 September 2023Directorate-General for Competition, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology1 min read

Commission designates six gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act

List of designated gatekeepers and core platform services under the DMA

Today (6 September 2023) the European Commission has designated, for the first time, six gatekeepers - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft - under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In total, 22 core platform services provided by gatekeepers have been designated. The six gatekeepers will now have six months to ensure full compliance with the DMA obligations for each of their designated core platform services.

The designation decisions follow a 45-day review process conducted by the Commission after the notification by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung of their potential status as gatekeepers. 

In parallel, the Commission has opened four market investigations to further assess Microsoft’s and Apple’s submissions arguing that, despite meeting the thresholds, some of their core platform services do not qualify as gateways:

  • Microsoft: Bing, Edge and Microsoft Advertising
  • Apple: iMessage

Under the DMA, these investigations aim to ascertain whether a sufficiently substantiated rebuttal presented by the companies, demonstrate that services in question should not be designated. The investigation should be completed within a maximum of 5 months.

In addition, the Commission has opened a market investigation to further assess whether Apple’s iPadOS should be designated as gatekeeper, despite not meeting the thresholds. Under the DMA, this investigation should be completed within a maximum of 12 months.

Moreover, the Commission has concluded that, although Gmail, Outlook.com and Samsung Internet Browser meet the thresholds under the DMA to qualify as a gatekeeper, Alphabet, Microsoft and Samsung provided sufficiently justified arguments showing that these services do not qualify as gateways for the respective core platform services. Therefore, the Commission decided not to designate Gmail, Outlook.com and Samsung Internet Browser as core platform services. It follows that Samsung is not designated as gatekeeper with respect to any core platform service.

More information is available in the dedicated press release and Q&A.