Apple, Facebook, TikTok among six firms to face stricter EU rules

The European Union on Wednesday unveiled the list of digital giants — including Apple, Facebook owner Meta and TikTok parent ByteDance — that will face tough new curbs on how they do business.

Brussels is working through a dense legislative agenda to build tougher regulation of big tech, arguing it needs to protect European consumers online and to encourage competition in an industry dominated by US giants.

The latest announcement is a milestone in the application of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will force the largest firms to change their ways under a checklist of dos and don’ts and, regulators hope, create a fairer market.

Observers say the law could open a new battlefront between digital titans and the European Union as some companies consider launching legal challenges.

The European Commission, the EU’s powerful antitrust body, named 22 “core platform” services belonging to five US tech behemoths identified as “gatekeepers” — Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft — and China’s ByteDance.

The services included Apple’s App Store; Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; Google’s YouTube video platform and Chrome browser, as well as Apple’s Safari.

Others included operating systems run by Apple, Microsoft and Google as well as Alphabet’s Google Maps, Play and Shopping.

They must fully comply with the DMA by March 6, 2024.

The “gatekeeper” status applies when a service has more than 45 million monthly active users and more than 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU.

Apple on Wednesday said it was “very concerned about the privacy and data security risks the DMA poses for our users” and said it would seek to “mitigate these impacts”.

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 even up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.

One major change under the DMA is the rule that forces interoperability between messaging apps, making it easier for users to share links and images.

“With today’s designation we are finally reining in the economic power of six gatekeepers, giving more choice to consumers and creating new opportunities for smaller innovative tech companies,” said the EU’s top tech enforcer, industry commissioner Thierry Breton.