MOSCOW, Nov 16 : Meta (banned in Russia for extremism) and TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, have appealed against the European Union’s decision to brand their services as a “gatekeeper” that will have to comply with certain obligations and prohibitions under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA) aimed at making online markets more competitive, media reported on Thursday.
TikTok challenged the decision on Thursday, saying that it did not meet the necessary thresholds to be affected by the legislation, while the designation as a “gatekeeper” could hamper the company’s ability to develop and grow, the Financial Times reported.
In a separate appeal on Wednesday, Meta challenged the EU’s move to designate Facebook’s Messenger and Marketplace as “core” services under the DMA, the report said. It added, citing people familiar with the appeal, that Meta would argue Messenger is a chat functionality of the popular social network platform and not a separate service, while Marketplace is just a consumer product rather than a “gateway” for businesses to target consumers.
The new rules under the DMA, which are set to come into effect in the first quarter of 2024, will introduce a number obligations for large tech companies to make their services interoperable for third parties and allow business users to access the data they generate while using their platforms, among other things. The rules will affect companies designated as “gatekeepers” under the law, which are “large digital platforms providing so called core platform services, such as online search engines, app stores, messenger services.”
Tech giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are covered by the legislation as well, with Apple and Amazon expected to also consider challenging the designation by Thursday’s deadline, the Financial Times reported. (UNI)
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