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The European Commission Appoints Six Watchdogs Under The Digital Markets Act

On September 6, 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) designated six gatekeepers (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft) for the first time under the Digital Markets Act (“DMA” and/or “Act”).

According to the Digital Markets Act;

  • This identified 22 core platform services provided by the gatekeepers, and these six gatekeepers will have six months to comply with their DMA obligations fully. 
  • they also have 6 months to submit a detailed compliance report summarizing how they have complied with each of the DMA's obligations.
  • If a gatekeeper fails to comply with the obligations set by the DMA, the Commission may impose a fine of up to 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover, and up to 20% if the breach is repeated.
  • In the case of systematic violations, the Commission may adopt additional remedies, such as forcing the gatekeeper to sell a business or prohibiting it from purchasing additional services related to non-compliance.

In particular, the Commission has established gatekeeper status in relation to certain core platform services. In addition, the Commission has seen fit to open four market investigations to assess Microsoft's and Apple's submissions that certain core platform services may not qualify as gateways, despite meeting thresholds. In addition, the Commission has launched a market investigation to assess further whether Apple's iPadOS should be designated as a gatekeeper.

The Commission has established gatekeeper status in relation to the following specific core platform services:


In the future, other companies may also notify the Commission under the DMA on the relevant thresholds. The process proceeds as in the example figure:

Companies that provide at least one of the ten (10) core platform services listed in the DMA are presumed to be gatekeepers if they meet the criteria listed below. These core platform services are:

  • App stores, online search engines, social networking services, certain messaging services, video sharing platform services, virtual assistants, web browsers, cloud computing services, operating systems, online marketplaces and online brokerage services such as advertising services. A company can be designated as a gatekeeper for several core platform services.

According to the DMA, there are three main criteria that create a presumption that a company is a threshold gatekeeper: 

1)The company reaches a certain annual turnover in the European Economic Area and offers a core platform service in at least three EU Member States 

2) The company offers a core platform service to more than 45 million monthly active end-users resident or domiciled in the EU and more than 10,000 annual active commercial users domiciled in the EU; and 

3) The company has met the second criterion within the last three years.

To this end, in force since November 2022 and implemented since May 2023, the DMA aims to ensure competitive and fair markets in the digital sector. The DMA regulates gatekeepers - large online platforms that provide an important gateway between business users and consumers and whose position can give them the power to create a bottleneck in the digital economy.

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys-at-Law

info@zumbul.av.tr