EU Finalizes Digital Markets Act With Stricter Gatekeeper Rules
The European Union reaches a political agreement on the Digital Markets Act, establishing new obligations for large tech companies classified as gatekeepers. The final text raises financial thresholds for gatekeepers and places strict limits on cross-platform data combining.
The European Union unveils the final text of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) following trilogue negotiations between the European Commission, European Parliament, and EU Member States. The final text retains the same foundational features as previous drafts but introduces notable compromises regarding the scope of the regulation. These changes directly impact how large technology organizations operate and process data within the European market.
Under the new agreement, web browsers and voice assistants join the definition of "core platform services," while connected TVs escape the DMA's scope. The regulation also raises the financial threshold to identify a company as a "gatekeeper" to €7.5 billion in annual revenue and €75 billion in market capitalization. Additionally, an organization needs to have at least 45 million monthly end users and 10,000 yearly business users to qualify for this strict designation.
The final text places significant restrictions on how gatekeepers handle data and interact with business users. Companies are prohibited from combining data across platform services unless users provide explicit consent in line with the GDPR, eliminating alternative legal bases for processing. Furthermore, gatekeepers cannot force business users to utilize their payment services, and they are now required to provide advertisers and publishers with access to price-setting conditions and the algorithms used by the platform.