Digital Markets Act (DMA)

Full name: Regulation  (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 September 2022 on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector and amending Directives (EU) 2019/1937 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Digital Markets Act)

Type: Regulation

Objective and key elements:

• Ensure fair and contestable digital markets in the EU – a level playing field
• Preventing “gatekeepers” from
• Include do’s and don’t for gatekeepers to inter alia:
  • prevent them imposing unfair conditions on businesses and end users and ensuring the openness of important digital services;
  • allow businesses to have access to more information on how their products or services are performing on third party platforms;
  • prevent unfair ranking of gatekeepers' own services and products compared to those offered by other businesses on the same platform: and
  • prevent consumer lock-in.

Relevant to: "Gatekeepers" providing core platform services and anyone using or competing with such services.

Core platform services are defined as: (a) online intermediation services; (b) online search engines; (c) online social networking services;(d) video-sharing platform services; (e) number-independent interpersonal communications services; (f) operating systems; (g) web browsers; (h) virtual assistants; (i) cloud computing services; (j) online advertising services, including any advertising networks, advertising exchanges and any other advertising intermediation services, provided by an undertaking that provides any of the core platform services listed in points (a) to (i);
Gate keepers is further described in Article 3. To generalize, it more or less means “big tech”.

Status: In force. However, parts still under implementation such as:

• Gatekeepers were designated on 6 September 2023, read more.
• Core obligations for gatekeepers to apply 6 months from designation, 6 February 2024
• Meta (Marketplace and Messenger services) and Byte Dance (TikTok) has appealed their designation as gatekeepers.

Hannes Snellman blog posts:

• The EU Digital Markets Act – What Is Different Compared to the EU Competition Law Rules and What Are the Anticipated Impacts on Companies and Consumers?, 15 November 2023, link.

(Last updated 1 December 2023)