Tech

EU's Digital Markets Act forces Big Tech to open platforms

New rules reshape how Meta, Google, Apple operate in Europe

Von ZenNews Editorial 14.05.2026, 21:11 9 Min. Lesezeit

EU's Digital Markets Act forces Big Tech to open platforms

The European Union's Digital Markets Act has entered full enforcement, compelling the world's most powerful technology companies to fundamentally alter how their platforms operate across the continent — or face fines of up to ten percent of global annual turnover. The legislation, targeting so-called "gatekeepers" including Meta, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and ByteDance, represents the most sweeping overhaul of digital competition rules in a generation.

Key Data: The European Commission has designated six companies as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act, covering 22 core platform services. Non-compliance fines can reach 10% of global annual turnover, rising to 20% for repeat violations. Periodic penalty payments may also be imposed at up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover. (Source: European Commission)

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What the Digital Markets Act Actually Requires

The Digital Markets Act — commonly abbreviated as the DMA — is a piece of EU legislation designed to prevent dominant digital platforms from abusing their market positions. Unlike traditional antitrust law, which moves slowly through courts after harm has already occurred, the DMA imposes a forward-looking set of obligations and prohibitions. Gatekeepers must comply by default, rather than waiting for regulators to prove wrongdoing case by case.

A "gatekeeper" under the DMA is any company that operates a core platform service — such as an online search engine, social network, app store, messaging service, or operating system — that has a significant impact on the EU internal market, controls an important gateway for business users to reach consumers, and holds an entrenched or durable market position. The European Commission determines gatekeeper status using both quantitative thresholds and qualitative assessments.

Key Obligations for Designated Gatekeepers

Gatekeepers face a dual regime: a list of things they must do (obligations) and a list of things they are prohibited from doing (prohibitions). On the obligation side, companies must allow third-party app stores on their mobile operating systems, enable interoperability with competing messaging services, provide business users with access to data generated through their use of the platform, and give advertisers and publishers tools to independently verify the performance of advertising. On the prohibition side, gatekeepers cannot rank their own products or services more favourably than those of competitors, require users to use one of their services as a condition of accessing another, or track users outside the gatekeeper's core platform for targeted advertising without valid consent.

As EU Digital Markets Act targets Big Tech with new fines details, the financial consequences for non-compliance are substantial enough to represent a genuine deterrent even for trillion-dollar corporations. The European Commission has made clear that it intends to use its enforcement powers actively.

How Apple, Google, and Meta Are Responding

Each of the designated gatekeepers has responded to DMA requirements differently, reflecting both their distinct business models and their varying degrees of resistance to regulatory intervention.

Apple and the App Store Dispute

Apple's response to the DMA has been among the most closely scrutinised. The company was required to allow alternative app marketplaces on iOS devices sold within the EU — a significant departure from the closed ecosystem model it has maintained since the iPhone's introduction. Apple introduced a so-called "Core Technology Fee" as part of its compliance framework, charging developers 50 euro cents per installation beyond a one-million-install threshold annually, even on third-party app stores. Critics, including the European Commission, raised concerns that this fee structure undermined the spirit of the legislation. Regulators opened a formal non-compliance investigation into Apple's App Store practices, according to Commission announcements.

Apple also introduced changes to its Safari browser and default search engine selection process in the EU, presenting users with a choice screen — a measure previously ordered under separate EU competition proceedings. The company has consistently argued that its walled-garden approach protects user privacy and security, a position that regulators have acknowledged but not accepted as a blanket justification for restrictive practices.

Google and Search Self-Preferencing

Google faces DMA obligations directly targeting the self-preferencing behaviour that competition authorities have spent more than a decade attempting to address. The company must present search results without artificially promoting its own specialised search services — such as Google Shopping, Google Flights, or Google Maps — above equally or more relevant third-party results. Google has introduced interoperability measures for its messaging infrastructure and faces scrutiny over how it handles data across its advertising ecosystem.

According to analysis published by MIT Technology Review, the DMA's approach to search neutrality represents a technically complex challenge. Determining what constitutes "fair and non-discriminatory" ranking in a search engine requires continuous auditing and, potentially, independent algorithmic review — a process that has no established precedent at this scale.

Meta and Messaging Interoperability

Meta's WhatsApp, designated as a core platform service, is required under the DMA to open its messaging infrastructure to interoperability with third-party messaging applications. This means, in theory, that a user on a competing messaging service should eventually be able to exchange messages with WhatsApp users without switching platforms. Meta has published technical documentation for third-party providers seeking to connect, though interoperability at scale raises legitimate questions around end-to-end encryption integrity and spam prevention. Wired has reported on the cryptographic challenges involved in maintaining robust encryption while bridging architecturally distinct messaging systems.

Enforcement Mechanisms and Early Investigations

The European Commission serves as the sole enforcer of the DMA, with national competition authorities playing a supporting role. The Commission has the power to conduct inspections, request information, interview individuals, and impose interim measures in cases of urgency. Structural remedies — including forced divestiture — are available as a last resort in cases of systematic non-compliance, officials said.

Early enforcement actions have focused primarily on Apple and Meta. The Commission opened formal non-compliance proceedings against Apple related to its App Store rules, its browser and search choice architecture, and its consent model for combining personal data across services. Proceedings against Meta addressed the company's "pay or consent" advertising model, under which European users were offered the choice of paying a subscription fee or consenting to personalised advertising — a model the Commission found inconsistent with the DMA's requirements for valid consent.

Company	Designated Core Platform Services	Key DMA Obligation	Compliance Status
Apple	iOS, App Store, Safari, Siri	Allow third-party app stores; browser/search choice screen	Under formal investigation
Google (Alphabet)	Search, Android, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Play, Google Shopping, YouTube, Gmail	Prohibit search self-preferencing; data portability	Partial compliance measures in place
Meta	Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Marketplace	Messaging interoperability; valid advertising consent	Under formal investigation
Amazon	Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Advertising	Non-discriminatory ranking of third-party sellers	Compliance measures submitted
Microsoft	Windows PC OS, LinkedIn, Bing, Edge, Microsoft Advertising	Interoperability; non-bundling of Teams with Office	Teams voluntarily unbundled ahead of deadline
ByteDance	TikTok	Data access for business users; advertising transparency	Compliance documentation submitted

Broader Implications for the Digital Economy

The DMA's reach extends well beyond the companies directly designated as gatekeepers. Third-party developers, advertisers, retailers, and content publishers operating within gatekeeper platforms all stand to be affected by changes in how those platforms function. Research from Gartner suggests that regulatory pressure in Europe is increasingly influencing product architecture decisions made at global headquarters, with compliance requirements in one jurisdiction gradually reshaping platform design worldwide — a dynamic analysts refer to as the "Brussels Effect."

IDC has noted that the DMA could accelerate the fragmentation of global digital services, as companies maintain distinct product configurations for EU users that differ meaningfully from those offered elsewhere. This creates additional engineering overhead and raises questions about whether smaller markets outside the EU will ultimately benefit from compliance-driven product changes or be left with a different — and potentially less open — version of the same platforms.

Impact on Competition and Consumer Choice

One of the DMA's stated objectives is to increase competitive contestability in digital markets — making it easier for smaller rivals and new entrants to compete against entrenched gatekeepers. Whether the legislation achieves this in practice remains an open empirical question. Academics and regulators have historically debated whether mandated interoperability and data access genuinely lower barriers to entry or simply impose compliance costs that gatekeepers can absorb while smaller competitors cannot. The coming years of enforcement data will be critical in assessing the law's real-world impact.

The DMA also intersects with broader EU digital policy, including the Data Act, the AI Act, and the Digital Services Act, creating an increasingly dense regulatory environment for technology companies operating in Europe. As EU Tightens AI Rules as Tech Giants Face New Compliance Deadlines reports, companies are simultaneously navigating artificial intelligence obligations alongside their DMA commitments — a compounding compliance burden that is reshaping how legal and engineering teams are structured inside major technology firms.

The UK's Parallel Approach

The United Kingdom, no longer subject to EU law following its departure from the bloc, has pursued its own legislative framework for digital market competition. The UK's regime, administered by the Competition and Markets Authority's dedicated Digital Markets Unit, takes a different structural approach from the DMA. Rather than imposing uniform obligations across all designated gatekeepers, the UK model assigns bespoke conduct requirements to individual firms designated as having "strategic market status" — a more targeted but potentially slower-moving mechanism.

The legislative journey was a lengthy one. As documented in UK Digital Markets Bill Faces Final Parliamentary Vote, the bill navigated considerable parliamentary scrutiny before reaching its conclusion. The outcome is detailed in UK Digital Markets Bill Gets Final Parliamentary Approval, which marked a significant moment for UK competition policy in the post-Brexit era. Questions remain about whether the bespoke, company-by-company approach will prove as structurally effective as the EU's categorical obligations, or whether it will create a patchwork of individually negotiated arrangements that are harder to enforce consistently.

Divergence and Its Consequences

The regulatory divergence between the EU and the UK creates practical complications for technology companies operating across both markets. A platform may be required to offer messaging interoperability in the EU but face no such requirement in the UK — leading to different product configurations for users in London and Paris, potentially to the detriment of cross-border digital services. Industry groups have raised concerns that a fragmented regulatory landscape across Europe, broadly defined, increases costs without proportionally increasing consumer benefit.

What Comes Next

The European Commission's enforcement calendar is expected to produce its first significant DMA fining decisions in the near term, following the conclusion of ongoing non-compliance investigations. Those decisions will establish important precedents for how the Commission interprets its powers, what remedies it considers proportionate, and how aggressively it is prepared to pursue structural intervention against the largest technology companies in the world.

Meanwhile, the technology industry is watching closely to see whether DMA-driven changes in Europe migrate into global product strategies or remain geographically siloed. Analysts at Gartner have previously noted that the "Brussels Effect" has historically proven more durable than tech companies initially anticipated — privacy rules introduced under the General Data Protection Regulation, for instance, influenced data handling practices globally, not merely within EU borders.

The DMA represents a generational shift in how democratic governments approach the governance of digital infrastructure. Whether it succeeds in rebalancing power between platforms and the users, developers, and businesses who depend on them will depend substantially on the rigour and consistency of enforcement — and on whether the companies subject to it choose genuine compliance over regulatory arbitrage. The next phase of that contest is already under way.