A clutch of big tech firms including Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. have told the European Union they meet the requirements to be subject to the bloc’s landmark digital antitrust rules, which could have a major impact on how they operate, according to Bloomberg.
The group includes Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp.. Samsung Electronics Co. and TikTok owner Bytedance Ltd. also appear, EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton said in a tweet on Tuesday.
The seven platforms had notified the EU they meet thresholds to be designated as a so-called gatekeeper, which includes having a sales across the bloc of at least €7.5 billion or a market capitalization of €75 billion or more.
Once designated as gatekeeper platform, the commission must confirm the specific service each company provides, and whether that service should come under the scope of the rules.
To qualify, such core platform services will need to have more than 45 million monthly active end-users and more than 10,000 yearly active business users in the bloc.
Under the obligations, which become enforceable from March 2024, platforms will face a range of dos and don’ts. Among those, digital services will be barred from pre-installing certain applications and favoring their own services.
The firms will face restrictions on how they combine personal data between services. They must also allow third-party payment systems on their platforms and permit users to download apps from alternative online stores on their phones.