US IT firms will be required to closely follow the European Union’s new business regulations when they go into effect in two months, according to Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner for the group, who announced this on Friday.
While in Silicon Valley, EU Competition Commissioner Vestager had meetings with Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, Tim Cook, and other high-profile tech figures.
They talked about the EU’s first-ever Digital Markets Act, which takes effect on March 7.
Its rules designate China-based ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, and six US tech giants: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon as “gatekeepers” in charge of the internet’s fundamental services.
“Gatekeepers have been designated and March 7 is compliance day,” Vestager told reporters after her meetings.
“It means that those who are designated gatekeepers will have to live up to the obligations that are relevant to these core platform services that have been designated. And this is not trivial,” she added.
Apple’s App Store, Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Google’s YouTube video platform, Chrome browser, and Apple Safari are some of these core services.
One of the primary goals of the DMA is to prevent larger players from stifling the growth of smaller businesses that pose a threat to their market share by acquiring them through takeovers.
The EU believes past examples of this are Facebook’s buyouts of Instagram and WhatsApp as well as Google’s purchase of YouTube and Waze.
There will be fines of up to 10 percent of a firm’s global revenues for breaking some of the most serious competition rules, and authorities will break up the companies of repeat offenders.
Tech giants Meta and TikTok are contesting the scope of the EU law and Apple is rejecting the notion that its app stores across all devices amounts to one store.
“The regulations that it can be challenged. We respect that,” Vestager said, while pointing out that any challenge would not suspend the DMA’s implementation.
“We’ve been working with Apple as with the other gatekeepers with a principle of open door,” she added.
“So far I have no reason to believe that they will not do their utmost to be compliant by March 7,” she said.
