VARIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF DIGITAL MARKETS ACT ON GATEKEEPERS

Abstract

On November the 1st, The European Union’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force. At present, the DMA is at its crucial implementation phase and will come into force in six months, as of 2 May 2023. After that, within two months (and at the latest by 3 July 2023), potential Gatekeepers will have to notify their core platform services to the Commission if they meet the thresholds established by the DMA. DMA was made with the purpose of improving customers’ digital lives, and part of that means reduction of the influence of Gatekeepers by several restrictions. Gatekeepers are defined by DMA as digital platforms that provide an important gateway between business users and consumers – whose position can grant them the power to act as a private rule maker, thus creating a bottleneck in the digital economy. As the time passes, Gatekeepers should adapt to this new regulation and corresponding restrictions. DMA established a list of rules that Gatekeepers now need to implement in their habitual activities and practices. For instance, among other requirements, the DMA requires companies marked as Gatekeepers to now allow third-party apps to be installed on their devices. In this article, we will focus on the implementations, in which specific Gatekeepers, had to make or are going to make changes, which will be in accordance with the demands of the DMA. The methodology used to identify the ‘situations’ cannot be separated from the problems that this regulation seeks to address. We will point out some of the steps that are expected by specific Gatekeepers (members of the GAFAM group) to reconcile with the DMA demands. In this article we will also outline the role of the European Commission, as the Gatekeepers in question will notice whether they meet the thresholds established by the DMA. This article reveals the various provisions of the DMA in relation to Gatekeepers and points out some of the consequences of these provisions.