Elon Musk’s X, TikTok owner ByteDance could face tough EU tech rules

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft were named gatekeepers last year. (representative)

Brussels, Belgium:

Elon Musk’s X social media platform, TikTok owner ByteDance and Booking.com may meet EU standards, subjecting them to strict tech “gatekeepers”, the European Commission said late on Friday after the companies issued notices. Rule constraints.

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) designates companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and a market capitalization of more than €75 billion ($81 billion) as gatekeepers for providing core platform services to enterprise users.

Starting March 7, the companies must meet other obligations to make their messaging apps interoperable with competitors and let users decide which apps are preinstalled on their devices.

They may not favor their own services over those of competitors, nor may they prevent users from removing preinstalled software or applications.

“The Commission now has 45 working days to decide whether to designate these companies as gatekeepers. The Commission will also assess any arguments put forward by the submitting companies to rebut the presumption that they should be designated as gatekeepers,” the EU competition enforcement agency said in a statement A statement.

ByteDance was labeled a gatekeeper in July last year, but TikTok has challenged this in Europe’s second-highest court. It is unclear which of ByteDance’s other services could be considered core platform services under DMA.

Booking.com said last year it expected to fall into the gatekeeper group this year as it adds more users.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft were named gatekeepers last year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)