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Digital Markets Act

European Union regulation establishing obligations for designated digital gatekeepers to promote fair and contestable digital markets.

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The Digital Markets Act (DMA), formally Regulation (EU) 2022/1925, is a European Union regulation intended to ensure contestable and fair markets in the digital sector. It establishes obligations and prohibitions for companies designated by the European Commission as “gatekeepers” in relation to specified core platform services, including search engines, app stores, operating systems, social networks, and messaging services. The regulation entered into force on 1 November 2022 and became generally applicable on 2 May 2023. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The DMA addresses the position of large platforms that act as gateways between businesses and their customers. Its rules concern matters such as preferential treatment of platforms’ own services, alternative app distribution and payment arrangements, access to data, user choice, and interoperability. Unlike case-by-case enforcement under traditional competition law, it imposes advance requirements on designated gatekeepers; existing EU competition rules continue to apply alongside it. Its implementation combines designation decisions, compliance reporting, regulatory dialogue, investigations, financial penalties, and periodic review of the framework’s operation. (consilium.europa.eu)

Economic rationale and regulatory objectives

The Digital Markets Act (DMA), adopted as Regulation (EU) 2022/1925, pursues two connected objectives: fairness and contestability. Contestability concerns whether businesses can overcome barriers to entry and expansion and challenge an incumbent through the merits of their products or services. It is therefore not simply a count of existing competitors: several large platforms can coexist while newcomers remain unable to compete effectively. Fairness concerns imbalances in business users’ rights and obligations through which a gatekeeper obtains a disproportionate advantage. The objectives reinforce one another: weak competitive pressure can enable unfair terms, while those terms can obstruct businesses seeking to challenge the platform. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The regulation’s economic rationale identifies several mutually reinforcing characteristics of core platform services. Economies of scale arise where adding users entails almost no marginal cost. Network effects make services more valuable as participation grows, including across the business and consumer sides of a platform. Accumulated data can give incumbents advantages unavailable to entrants; recital 61 identifies search-query, click and viewing data as inputs that help search providers improve their services. Lock-in, dependence and limited use of competing services for the same purpose can further impede switching. Together, these mechanisms can protect an incumbent even against an entrant offering an innovative product. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The gateway relationship creates a separate bargaining problem. A marketplace or application store may be a route through which businesses reach customers while also setting their conditions of access. Recital 33 identifies the risk that this position permits unilateral, unbalanced terms or discrimination against businesses competing with the platform’s own offerings. Providing a service free of charge to one user group does not, in the regulation’s reasoning, eliminate that imbalance. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The DMA consequently targets designated gatekeepers rather than digital businesses generally. Its targeted, harmonised rules address platforms able to shape other businesses’ access to customers, rather than imposing equivalent duties on every online retailer, application developer or digital intermediary. For business users, the intended benefits include greater commercial autonomy and opportunities to compete: requirements allowing them to promote offers and conclude contracts outside a gatekeeper’s platform illustrate this objective. For end users, intended benefits include meaningful choice, better-quality services and more competitive prices. These are regulatory aims, not guarantees that every intervention will immediately produce lower prices or additional competitors. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Harmonisation also serves an economic objective: consistent safeguards across the European Union are intended to facilitate cross-border business rather than leave platform users facing divergent national protections. The framework operates prospectively alongside competition law, establishing obligations without relying exclusively on individual, retrospective cases. Its objectives nevertheless remain distinct from evidence of its effects. The Commission’s review of 28 April 2026 reported positive contributions to fairness and contestability, but also recognised implementation difficulties and an assessment period of approximately two years. That assessment represents the Commission’s findings; the existence of new contractual options or technical tools is analytically distinct from demonstrating sustained changes in entry, prices or innovation across digital markets. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Legislative development and commencement

The European Commission presented its proposal for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on 15 December 2020, alongside the Digital Services Act (DSA), as the two legislative components of the digital services package. The initiatives were presented under Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. Although developed together, they pursued distinct regulatory tasks: the DMA proposed obligations governing the commercial conduct of large platforms acting as gatekeepers, whereas the DSA addressed intermediary responsibilities, illegal content and the protection of users’ rights online. The package therefore proceeded through two separate legislative instruments rather than a single act regulating all aspects of digital platforms. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)

On 25 November 2021, the Council of the European Union unanimously agreed its negotiating position, known as a “general approach”, on the DMA. This established the member states’ mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament; it was not final adoption of the regulation. The Council’s proposed changes included shorter procedural deadlines, clearer designation criteria and an enhanced role for national competition authorities, while retaining the Commission as the sole enforcer of the regulation. The Council presidency and Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on 24 March 2022, announced in the Council’s press release of 25 March. That compromise still required formal approval by both co-legislators. (consilium.europa.eu)

The European Parliament approved the agreed text on 5 July 2022 by 588 votes to 11, with 31 abstentions. The Council gave its final approval on 18 July 2022. On 14 September 2022, Parliament President Roberta Metsola and Czech Minister for European Affairs Mikuláš Bek, representing the Council presidency, signed the act. It became Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector, also amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828. These parliamentary, Council and signature dates mark different stages of the legislative process, rather than alternative dates for the commencement of platform obligations. (oeil.europarl.europa.eu)

Publication in the Official Journal of the European Union followed on 12 October 2022. Under Article 54, the regulation entered into force twenty days later, on 1 November 2022, but became generally applicable on 2 May 2023. Certain provisions applied earlier, including powers to adopt implementing and delegated acts and provisions establishing the Digital Markets Advisory Committee. Articles 42 and 43, concerning representative actions and protection for persons reporting infringements, applied from 25 June 2023. The commencement arrangements thus separated the regulation’s legal entry into force from the general operation of its regulatory framework. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

General applicability on 2 May 2023 did not mean that every potentially covered platform immediately had to satisfy all substantive conduct requirements. Article 3(10) instead gives a designated gatekeeper six months after a service is listed in its designation decision to comply with Articles 5, 6 and 7 for that service. For the initial six gatekeepers whose designations were announced in September 2023, the principal compliance deadline was 7 March 2024. Later service designations consequently produced separate compliance timetables: the relevant deadline followed the individual designation, not the original proposal, signature or general application date. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Territorial scope and core platform services

Article 1(2) connects the DMA’s territorial scope to the users served, rather than the provider’s headquarters. It covers core platform services provided or offered by gatekeepers to business users established in the European Union, or to end users established or located there, irrespective of the gatekeeper’s place of establishment or residence and the law otherwise governing the service. A non-EU provider is therefore not excluded merely because it operates from abroad, and a contractual choice of non-EU law does not remove an otherwise covered service from the regulation’s scope. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Article 2(2) specifies ten statutory categories: online intermediation services; online search engines; online social networking services; video-sharing platform services; number-independent interpersonal communications services; operating systems; web browsers; virtual assistants; cloud computing services; and qualifying online advertising services. The advertising category includes advertising networks, exchanges and other advertising intermediation, but only where the undertaking also provides a service within one of the preceding nine categories. The list thus identifies particular service types, rather than covering digital businesses generally. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Three levels must be distinguished: the undertaking, the statutory category and the individually identified service. The undertaking is the economic entity, including enterprises connected through control, rather than necessarily a single incorporated company. A category describes a type of activity; a designation decision identifies the particular services through which that undertaking acts as an important gateway between businesses and end users. (eur-lex.europa.eu) Alphabet, for example, is the undertaking behind separately listed services including Google Search, YouTube, Android Mobile and Google Chrome. Apple’s listed services include the App Store, iOS, Safari and iPadOS. These are distinct services, not interchangeable names for the companies providing them. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Service boundaries are not determined solely by branding, domain names or technical integration. In its 2024 Booking designation decision, the Commission explained that services within the same category should not be treated as separate mainly because they use different domain names or geographic attributes. Conversely, services belonging to different statutory categories remain distinct even when offered together; services within one category may also be distinct where business users or end users employ them for different purposes. These distinctions matter because the designation decision must list the relevant gateway services, and artificial fragmentation cannot be used to circumvent the designation thresholds. (ec.europa.eu)

Designation consequently does not automatically bring every product in a corporate portfolio under the service-specific obligations. On 6 September 2023, the Commission designated Alphabet and Microsoft in relation to specified services but declined to list Gmail and Outlook.com after accepting arguments that they did not constitute the relevant gateways. This illustrates the difference between belonging to a statutory service category and being individually listed in a gatekeeper designation decision: neither common ownership nor reaching a quantitative threshold alone makes every related product a designated service. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Gatekeeper designation and reassessment

Article 3 establishes three substantive conditions for gatekeeper designation: an undertaking must have a significant impact on the EU internal market; provide a core platform service constituting an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and enjoy an entrenched and durable position, or foreseeably attain that position in the near future. Quantitative thresholds create rebuttable presumptions that these conditions are satisfied, rather than an exhaustive definition of gatekeeper status. Designation identifies the undertaking and the particular services covered; it does not automatically extend to every product the undertaking supplies. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The financial presumption requires annual EU turnover of at least €7.5 billion in each of the preceding three financial years, or average market capitalisation or equivalent fair market value of at least €75 billion in the preceding financial year. Either route also requires provision of the same core platform service in at least three member states. The gateway presumption requires that service to have at least 45 million monthly active end users established or located in the EU and 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU during the preceding financial year. Meeting both user thresholds in each of the preceding three financial years supports presumed durability. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

An undertaking meeting the thresholds must notify the European Commission without delay and, at the latest, within two months, supplying the relevant information. The ordinary threshold-based designation deadline is 45 working days after receipt of complete information. With its notification, the undertaking may submit evidence that, exceptionally, the substantive conditions are not satisfied despite the figures. Unsupported rebuttals may be rejected; sufficiently substantiated arguments manifestly calling the presumptions into question can lead to a market investigation. The undertaking bears the burden of rebuttal, and arguments must relate directly to the quantitative criteria rather than, for example, claimed economic efficiencies. (ec.europa.eu)

Designation is also possible below the thresholds through a qualitative market investigation under Articles 3(8) and 17. Apple’s tablet operating system, iPadOS, illustrates this route: on 29 April 2024, following an investigation opened in September 2023, the Commission designated Apple in respect of iPadOS despite its not meeting all quantitative thresholds. The Commission concluded that the service was an important gateway and that Apple’s position was entrenched and durable. Apple received six months to bring iPadOS into compliance with the applicable obligations. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Article 4 permits the Commission, on request or on its own initiative, to reconsider, amend or repeal a designation when underlying facts change substantially or the original decision relied on incomplete, incorrect or misleading information. Separately, it must review existing gatekeepers at least every three years, including whether their lists of designated services require amendment. These reviews do not suspend existing obligations. The Commission must also examine at least annually whether additional undertakings meet the designation conditions. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Facebook Marketplace provides the contrasting example of removal. Meta requested reassessment on 5 March 2024 after taking measures to remove business users and make Marketplace exclusively a consumer-to-consumer service. The Commission subsequently found that Marketplace had fewer than 10,000 yearly active business users in 2024. Its decision of 23 April 2025 amended Meta’s original designation under Article 4(1), removing Marketplace from the list of designated core platform services. This was a service-specific reassessment, not the removal of Meta’s gatekeeper status for its other designated services. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Business access, commercial terms, and platform conduct

Article 6(5) prohibits self-preferencing in ranking: a gatekeeper cannot favour its own products or services over similar third-party offerings, including through associated indexing and crawling. Ranking conditions must be transparent, fair and non-discriminatory. Article 6(2) separately prohibits using non-public business-user data to compete with those users. It covers both aggregated and individual-level data, including information inferred from customers’ commercial activity. A marketplace operator therefore cannot use confidential seller-generated information to guide its own competing retail business merely because it controls the marketplace. These provisions constrain particular advantages arising from a platform’s simultaneous roles as intermediary and competitor, rather than prohibiting that dual role outright. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The anti-steering obligation in Article 5(4) protects businesses’ ability to communicate and promote alternative offers, including offers on different terms, and conclude contracts outside the gatekeeper’s platform. It covers customers acquired through the platform or other channels; communicating and promoting those offers must be free of charge. An app developer may, for example, direct customers to its website to purchase a subscription. On 23 April 2025, the European Commission found that Apple’s technical and commercial restrictions prevented developers from fully exercising these rights and ordered their removal. That administrative finding illustrates that formally allowing external links does not by itself establish compliance where their use remains restricted. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Article 5(3) restricts parity clauses, which prevent businesses from offering different prices or conditions through competing intermediaries or their own online sales channels. The Commission’s April 2026 review recorded that Booking Holdings had removed Booking.com’s contractual parity requirements for relevant European inventory. Article 5(7) separately bars compulsory use of the gatekeeper’s identification service, browser engine, payment service or technical services supporting payments in the circumstances specified by that provision. These rules do not establish a general prohibition on platform fees: the Commission distinguishes prohibited charges for steering from remuneration, where applicable, for initially acquiring a customer. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Advertising transparency addresses information asymmetry between platforms, advertisers and publishers. Articles 5(9) and 5(10) require gatekeepers, on request, to provide free daily information about individual advertisements, including prices, fees, publisher remuneration and the metrics used to calculate them. Disclosure of the other party’s advertiser-specific or publisher-specific financial information requires that party’s consent; otherwise, the regulation provides for relevant daily averages. Article 6(8) adds free access to performance-measurement tools and the information needed for advertisers, publishers and their authorised third parties to verify advertising inventory independently. This goes beyond receiving a platform’s own summary of campaign performance. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Access conditions are also regulated directly. Article 6(12) requires fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory general conditions for business users of designated app stores, search engines and online social networks—not every category of core platform service. Gatekeepers must publish those conditions, including an alternative dispute-settlement mechanism. The Commission’s April 2026 review reported that the gatekeepers concerned had established such mechanisms, while noting limited business-user uptake. These requirements concern the terms on which businesses reach customers, alongside the separate advertising-data obligations highlighted in the Council’s account of the DMA. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

User choice, personal data, and portability

Article 5(2) restricts four uses of personal data unless users receive a specific choice and give consent meeting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standard: processing data from third-party services for advertising; combining data across services; cross-using data between separately provided services; and signing users into another service to combine data. Consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. After refusal or withdrawal, gatekeepers may not request consent for the same purpose more than once within a year. The provision preserves applicable GDPR grounds concerning legal obligations, vital interests and public-interest tasks. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The Commission’s Meta decision of 23 April 2025 addressed what constitutes a meaningful alternative to consent. Meta’s November 2023 model required EU users of Facebook and Instagram either to consent to data combination for personalised advertising or to pay for an advertising-free subscription. The Commission found that this binary model failed to offer a less personalised but otherwise equivalent service and did not enable freely given consent. Its €200 million fine concerned the period from March to November 2024. Meta introduced an additional advertising option using less personal data in November 2024; the decision distinguished that later option from the binary model covered by its infringement finding. (ec.europa.eu)

Article 6(3) requires easy changes to defaults in designated operating systems, virtual assistants and web browsers, with first-use choice prompts covering relevant browser, search and assistant defaults. Applications must be easily uninstallable, except essential components that third parties cannot technically supply independently. Article 6(13) prohibits disproportionate termination conditions; the Council describes the requirement as making unsubscribing as easy as subscribing. These provisions address separate mechanisms of user dependence: preselected services, retained applications and obstacles to cancellation. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Article 6(9) establishes data portability for data supplied by end users or generated through their activity on the relevant core platform service. Gatekeepers must provide effective portability free of charge, including tools facilitating its exercise and continuous, real-time access for users or third parties they authorise. The obligation therefore extends beyond a one-off downloadable archive: authorised services can support direct transfers, preserve user histories during switching, or provide complementary functionality based on activity data. The Commission’s developer portal illustrates this with Google Search history: an authorised third party can retrieve it through Google’s Data Portability API, with authorisation lasting up to 180 days at the user’s choice. That duration describes the implementation example, not a statutory limit on portability rights. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Two neighbouring provisions have different beneficiaries and safeguards. Article 6(10) gives business users and their authorised third parties free, high-quality, continuous and real-time access to relevant business-related data. Access to end-user personal data requires consent and a direct connection with those users’ engagement with the business’s products or services. For example, app developers can obtain engagement analytics through Apple’s reporting interfaces. Article 6(11), by contrast, gives competing search-engine providers access on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to ranking, query, click and view data concerning free and paid searches. End users’ personal data must be anonymised. Unlike Article 6(9), this is not an individual’s transfer of their own history; unlike Articles 6(9) and 6(10), access need not be free. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

App distribution and interoperability

Article 6(4) requires gatekeepers to permit and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party applications and app stores on their designated operating systems, including access through channels outside the gatekeeper’s own core platform services. This covers both alternative stores and applications distributed independently of the incumbent store. Gatekeepers may retain safeguards against threats to hardware or operating-system integrity, but these must be strictly necessary, proportionate and duly justified. Separate measures enabling users to protect their security are subject to the same conditions and must use settings other than defaults. The provision therefore does not require unrestricted installation without security controls. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Operating-system interoperability under Article 6(7) addresses a different technical barrier: access to features that enable applications, services and connected hardware to work with a platform. Providers of services and hardware must receive, free of charge, effective interoperability with the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled through a designated operating system or virtual assistant as are available to the gatekeeper’s own offerings. This is an access obligation for competing suppliers, rather than simply permission to distribute an application through another store. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

On 19 March 2025, the European Commission adopted two binding specification decisions detailing Apple’s obligations. The first concerned nine iOS connectivity features used principally by connected devices such as smartwatches, headphones and televisions. Examples included displaying iPhone notifications on third-party watches, device pairing, peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections and near-field communication. The second addressed Apple’s process for handling interoperability requests concerning iOS and iPadOS: it required better access to technical documentation, timely communications and updates, and more predictable review timelines. These decisions specified implementation measures under Article 8(2); specification proceedings do not themselves determine whether a gatekeeper has infringed the regulation. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Article 7 instead requires interoperability between designated number-independent interpersonal communications services and other messaging providers offering, or intending to offer, services in the European Union. The obligation is request-based and free of charge, and covers functionalities that the gatekeeper already supplies to its own users. Its phased timetable begins with one-to-one text messaging and sharing images, voice messages, videos and other attachments, normally due six months after designation. Group messaging follows within two years; one-to-one and group voice and video calling follow within four years. The gatekeeper must publish a reference offer containing technical specifications and general terms, and must make the requested functionalities operational within three months of receiving a reasonable request. This does not impose automatic interconnection between every messaging service. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Messaging interoperability must preserve the security level offered to the gatekeeper’s own users, including end-to-end encryption where applicable. Users remain free to decide whether to use interoperable functions, and personal-data exchanges must be limited to what is strictly necessary. Protective restrictions must be necessary, proportionate and justified. These cross-provider communication requirements differ from operating-system feature access: the former connects messaging networks, while the latter enables third-party products to use platform capabilities. Neither should be confused with Article 6(9) data portability, which concerns transferring end-user data rather than making devices or communications services work together. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Supervision, enforcement, and remedies

The European Commission is the DMA’s central supervisory and enforcement authority. Under Article 11, gatekeepers must submit detailed compliance reports and non-confidential summaries within six months of designation and update them at least annually. Public versions allow business users, competitors and other interested parties to scrutinise implementation. The Commission also publishes annual implementation reports under Article 35 and organises stakeholder workshops: its 2025 series examined the six initially designated gatekeepers’ March 2025 reports, including changes since March 2024. These workshops provide opportunities for questions and feedback, rather than constituting decisions approving the reported measures. (consilium.europa.eu)

Specification proceedings and non-compliance investigations serve different purposes. Under Article 8, the Commission can specify measures needed to implement obligations in Articles 6 and 7, acting on its own initiative or following a gatekeeper’s request. Specification decisions must be adopted within six months of proceedings opening. This process clarifies implementation without necessarily finding an infringement; the Commission’s 2024 Apple proceedings expressly distinguished specification from an assessment of compliance. A non-compliance investigation, by contrast, can culminate in an Article 29 decision establishing a breach and requiring its termination. Opening proceedings does not itself establish an infringement. (ec.europa.eu)

Investigatory powers include information requests, access to relevant data and algorithms, interviews, and inspections of business premises and records. Article 24 permits time-limited, renewable interim measures where a prima facie infringement threatens serious and irreparable harm to business users or end users. Procedural safeguards include an opportunity to answer preliminary findings before specified adverse decisions and access to the file, subject to confidentiality protections. Commission decisions are subject to judicial review by the EU courts. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Article 30 permits fines of up to 10% of total worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year. The ceiling rises to 20% for the same or a similar infringement of Articles 5, 6 or 7 concerning the same core platform service, where an earlier non-compliance decision was adopted within the preceding eight years. These are statutory maxima, not automatic penalties. Separately, Article 31 allows periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover to compel compliance with specified obligations or decisions. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

Systematic non-compliance can trigger remedies beyond monetary penalties. Article 18 treats at least three non-compliance decisions within eight years as systematic infringement. Following a market investigation, the Commission may impose proportionate behavioural or structural remedies where the infringements have also maintained, strengthened or extended the undertaking’s gatekeeper position. Behavioural remedies regulate conduct; structural remedies can include divestiture of parts of a business. A remedy may also temporarily prohibit relevant concentrations involving digital services or data collection, where necessary and proportionate to restore fairness and contestability. Such measures address persistent non-compliance rather than following automatically from an individual fine. (consilium.europa.eu)

Article 14 creates a separate obligation to inform the Commission about intended concentrations where the merging businesses or acquisition target provide core platform services, other digital services, or enable data collection. It applies even below EU or national merger-notification thresholds, and information must be supplied before implementation. This reporting obligation does not constitute merger clearance or independently subject every reported acquisition to substantive review. Whether a transaction requires approval remains governed by separate merger-control rules, including their jurisdictional thresholds and applicable notification and standstill requirements. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Designations and enforcement in practice

On 6 September 2023, the European Commission announced its first six gatekeeper designations, covering 22 core platform services. Alphabet’s eight services were Google Search, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, YouTube, Android Mobile, Chrome and its online advertising service. Amazon’s designations covered its marketplace and advertising service; Apple’s covered the App Store, iOS and Safari; and ByteDance’s covered TikTok. Meta’s six services were Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook Marketplace and Meta Ads. Microsoft’s were LinkedIn and Windows PC OS. The designations therefore attached obligations to identified services, rather than automatically covering every product supplied by each corporate group. The initial gatekeepers’ principal compliance deadline was 7 March 2024. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

The service-level coverage subsequently changed. Apple’s iPadOS was added on 29 April 2024, and Booking became the seventh gatekeeper on 13 May 2024, specifically for Booking.com’s online intermediation service; its compliance deadline was 14 November 2024. Conversely, Facebook Marketplace’s designation was removed on 23 April 2025 after the Commission found that it had fewer than 10,000 business users in 2024. Removal of that service did not remove Meta’s other designations. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

On 25 March 2024, the Commission opened five non-compliance investigations into Alphabet, Apple and Meta. For Alphabet, it examined Google Play’s restrictions on developers directing customers to outside offers under Article 5(4), and possible preferential treatment of services such as Google Shopping, Flights and Hotels in Google Search under Article 6(5). Apple faced an Article 5(4) investigation concerning App Store steering and an Article 6(3) investigation concerning application uninstallation, default settings and its Safari browser-choice screen. Meta’s investigation concerned whether its “pay or consent” model satisfied Article 5(2)’s requirements for combining or cross-using personal data. These openings expressed regulatory concerns, not findings that infringements had occurred. Separate fact-gathering concerning Amazon’s own-brand products and Apple’s alternative-distribution terms was also announced. (ec.europa.eu)

On 23 April 2025, the Commission adopted its first DMA non-compliance decisions, fining Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million. It found that Apple’s technical and commercial restrictions prevented developers from freely informing customers of, and directing them towards, alternative offers outside the App Store. Apple was ordered to remove the restrictions and avoid measures with equivalent effects. The Commission separately closed its investigation into Apple’s user-choice obligations following changes to its compliance measures. (ec.europa.eu)

The Meta decision concerned the choice offered to Facebook and Instagram users between consenting to data combination for personalised advertising and paying for an advertising-free subscription. The Commission found that the model did not provide the required equivalent alternative using less personal data. Apple and Meta were given 60 days to comply with their respective decisions. These were administrative findings by the Commission, not judgments of an EU court; their adoption and any subsequent judicial review constitute distinct procedural stages. (ec.europa.eu)

Designation litigation followed a separate track from these infringement proceedings. On 17 July 2024, the General Court dismissed ByteDance’s annulment action in Bytedance v Commission (T-1077/23), holding that its evidence had not sufficiently rebutted the statutory gatekeeper presumptions. Among other arguments, the court rejected the contention that TikTok’s lack of a broader platform ecosystem and users’ use of competing networks disproved its gateway position. ByteDance appealed in Case C-627/24 P. On 15 October 2026, Advocate General Andrea Biondi proposed dismissing the parts of that appeal examined in his opinion, while substituting different reasoning on the right to be heard. As of 22 October 2026, that opinion was non-binding and the Court of Justice’s judgment remained pending: the completed General Court judgment did not amount to a completed appeal. (curia.europa.eu)

Relationship with other legal frameworks

The DMA complements EU competition law rather than replacing it. Article 1(6) preserves Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which prohibit anticompetitive agreements and abuse of a dominant position, respectively, together with applicable national competition and merger-control rules. Gatekeeper designation is therefore not a finding of unlawful conduct under those provisions. Conversely, compliance with the DMA does not establish compliance with competition law: conduct must still be assessed under the requirements of the relevant framework. National courts retain their functions in competition-law disputes, including contractual litigation, damages actions and review of national competition authorities’ decisions. (eur-lex.europa.eu)

The Digital Services Act (DSA) addresses a different regulatory subject. Whereas the DMA regulates designated gatekeepers’ commercial and technical relationships with business users, competitors and end users, the DSA establishes responsibilities for online intermediary services concerning illegal content, goods and services, procedural safeguards and transparency. Its additional obligations for very large online platforms and search engines include assessing and mitigating systemic risks. A platform can fall under both regulations, but DMA gatekeeper designation and DSA designation as a very large platform are separate legal classifications. For example, restrictions on a gatekeeper’s commercial treatment of sellers belong to the DMA framework, while mechanisms for reporting illegal products and challenging content-moderation decisions belong to the DSA framework. (digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) continues to govern personal-data processing when gatekeepers implement DMA obligations. Article 5(2) DMA expressly uses the GDPR standard of consent for specified combinations and cross-use of personal data; consent must therefore be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. Data-access obligations are not unrestricted permissions to disclose personal information. Article 6(10), for instance, conditions business-user access to personal data on its connection with end users’ use of that business user’s products or services and on those users’ consent. Gatekeepers and recipients must also observe applicable requirements concerning lawful processing, purpose limitation, data minimisation and security. (edpb.europa.eu)

Binding statutory requirements must be distinguished from interpretative guidance. On 9 October 2025, the European Commission and the European Data Protection Board endorsed a first version of joint DMA–GDPR guidelines for public consultation, which closed on 4 December 2025. The consultation document addressed consent, app distribution, portability, business-user data access and messaging interoperability, among other intersections. It was not a legislative amendment or a final post-consultation text. The Commission’s April 2026 review documentation described finalisation as work intended for completion before the end of 2026. (edpb.europa.eu)

Coordination preserves these separate jurisdictions. Articles 37–38 provide for cooperation with national authorities, including exchanges through the European Competition Network. National competition authorities with the requisite domestic powers may investigate possible DMA non-compliance, but must inform the Commission; Commission proceedings displace that national DMA investigation. Article 39 allows national courts to request Commission information or opinions and requires them not to contradict Commission DMA decisions. The Article 40 High-Level Group brings together competition, data-protection, consumer-protection and sectoral regulators without replacing their enforcement powers. In 2024, the Commission recorded one notification of an intended national investigation and two notifications of intended national measures concerning gatekeepers. Designation thus does not displace separate privacy, consumer-protection or competition proceedings. (publications.europa.eu)

Evaluation, technological change, and implementation questions

Article 53 requires the European Commission to review the DMA every three years and report to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee. The first review, published on 28 April 2026, preceded the statutory deadline of 3 May 2026. Its remit included effects on business users, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, and end users; possible changes to service categories, obligations and enforcement; and whether messaging-interoperability requirements should extend to online social networks. The Commission concluded that the framework remained fit for purpose and that major legislative revision would be premature. These were the regulator’s assessments after approximately two years of substantive application, rather than an independent consensus on long-term effectiveness. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

The review documented changes in available functionality and early adoption. Browser and search-engine choice screens had provided alternatives to default providers, with services including Aloha, Ecosia, Qwant and DuckDuckGo reporting increased uptake. Approximately 40 third-party developers had integrated with gatekeepers’ APIs for user-authorised data portability. Available transfers included social-media activity, search histories and purchase histories. New consent mechanisms allowed users to refuse specified combinations of personal data, while messaging interoperability supported services such as BirdyChat connecting with WhatsApp. These observations distinguish the introduction and use of compliance tools from demonstrated market-wide effects: the Commission acknowledged that some impacts were not yet fully observable and that longer-term assessment required more time. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Implementation difficulties formed a separate part of the evidence. Consultation respondents reported technical obstacles to interoperability, slow or formalistic compliance, insufficient transparency, and measures they considered attempts to circumvent obligations. Such allegations were stakeholder feedback, not findings that every disputed implementation infringed the DMA. The Commission’s proposed response emphasised stronger implementation within the existing framework, continued regulatory dialogue and stakeholder workshops, and possible improvements to reporting templates and procedural transparency. It also declined, at that stage, to extend Article 7 interoperability requirements to online social networks, considering an extension premature while experience with messaging interoperability remained limited. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Cloud computing tested both designation procedures and the adequacy of existing obligations. On 18 November 2025, the Commission opened three market investigations: two concerned possible designation of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, while the third examined whether the DMA adequately addressed cloud-sector practices. Issues included interoperability barriers, restricted business access to data, tying and bundling, and potentially imbalanced contractual terms. On 25 June 2026, the Commission announced its preliminary view that AWS and Azure constituted important gateways despite not meeting the quantitative designation thresholds. This was an intermediate procedural position, not a final designation decision; Amazon and Microsoft were entitled to respond before final decisions. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

Artificial intelligence raised questions about how new technologies fitted existing service categories. AI functionality integrated into a designated service could already fall within its obligations; a separate AI offering might instead require assessment under an existing category, such as virtual assistants. On 27 January 2026, the Commission opened two specification proceedings concerning Alphabet. One addressed Article 6(7), seeking equally effective access for third-party AI providers to Android features used by Google’s own services, including Gemini. The other addressed Article 6(11): access to anonymised Google Search ranking, query, click and view data, including the eligibility of AI chatbot providers. These proceedings concerned how existing obligations should operate, rather than establishing an additional statutory category for AI or, by their opening alone, finding non-compliance. (digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu)

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