Apple and Microsoft achieve partial success against EU rules Swedish army commander: “It was time for us to wake up”

Technology giants Apple and Microsoft have achieved partial success against the European Commission. Certain business services are initially not subject to the strict rules for online companies – contrary to what the Brussels government initially envisioned.

This concerns Apple’s messaging service iMessage, Microsoft’s search engine Bing, the browser Edge and the advertising service Microsoft Advertising, the committee announced on Tuesday. However, they do want to continue to monitor developments in the market surrounding these services.

The European Commission has been trying to limit the market power of technology giants for a long time. This also includes Amazon and Meta. They are also called ‘gatekeepers’ – this means that the dominant internet companies act as intermediaries between a large number of providers and users.

In the EU, there are a number of prohibitions and requirements for this, which fall under the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA). According to the Commission, the rules they must comply with include that large companies may only combine data from different sources with the explicit consent of the user.

Major messenger services like WhatsApp and iMessage should also be open to receiving messages from smaller messengers. For group chats, this won’t come until the next few years. Violations result in heavy fines and, in exceptional cases, even divorce.

The DMA is intended to limit the market power of the internet giants, ensure fairer competition and give consumers more choice when it comes to online offers. Companies fall under the DMA if they have an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros or an average market capitalization of at least 75 billion euros. They must also operate a so-called central platform service with at least 45 million active users in the EU and 10,000 active commercial users per month. (sda/awp/dpa)