FT: Apple argues iMessage is not gatekeeper in the EU

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force on August 25 with the goal of ensuring a higher degree of competition in the EU digital market by regulating the market power of larger companies. The regulation refers to large entities as gatekeepers – large digital platforms with over 45 million active users in the EU and €7.5 billion annual revenue.

The EU Parliament will publish a list of gatekeepers tomorrow (September 6) and companies on that list will have until March 6, 2024, to comply with the regulation of opening up to competitors and ensuring interoperability between apps and platforms.

Apple and Microsoft are reportedly (via Financial Times) presenting arguments that their respective services – iMessage and Bing are not to be considered as gatekeepers. Apple claims that iMessage does not have the required 45 million active users in the EU to be considered a gatekeeper. Similarly, Microsoft is reportedly arguing that Bing has a 3% market share in the search engine market which is a far cry from Google’s dominance.

With the list of gatekeepers being published tomorrow, we’ll have a full rundown on the companies and services that are subjected to the EUs’ new digital regulation. Amazon, ByteDance, Meta, and Samsung are also expected to be placed on the platform gatekeepers list.

Source (paywall)