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Apple and Microsoft challenge the European Union: flagship services do not meet the threshold of "gatekeepers"

Shulou Source: shulou.com Published: 2023-11-24 20:27:38 11月11日 Update

CTOnews.com, September 5 (Xinhua)-- Microsoft and Apple recently challenged the European Union that their communications services did not meet the threshold and should not be regulated by "gatekeepers", according to Financial Times.

CTOnews.com reported in July that EU industry director Thierry Breton announced that seven companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft, were covered by the new "gatekeeper" rules, meaning they must meet stricter rules.

According to the EU's Digital Market Act (DMA), which came into force in November, companies with a monthly active user count of more than 45 million, a market capitalization of 75 billion euros (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 593.25 billion yuan) or an annual turnover of more than 7.5 billion euros are regarded as gatekeepers to provide core platform services.

Companies listed as "gatekeepers" require their information apps to communicate with competitors and let users decide which apps are pre-installed on their devices.

"Europe is thoroughly restructuring its digital space to better protect EU citizens and enhance innovation among EU start-ups and companies," Breton said in a statement.

Apple, both in terms of annual turnover and market capitalization, must meet the requirements of the new EU rules, but whether iMessage has more than 45 million users in Europe is the real question.

Apple does not publicly release the number of monthly active users of iMessage, so we are not sure how many users it has in each region.

Assuming that iMessage is not included in the list of "gatekeepers" released this week, the European Commission may launch a follow-up investigation to force Apple to disclose relevant user indicators. All provisions of the Digital Markets Act will enter into force in the spring of 2024.