The European Commission announced yesterday that the messaging service “iMessage” from Apple and the search engine “Bing” from Microsoft will not be subject to the new, stricter European rules aimed at curbing anti-competitive practices by technology giants, which are set to come into effect at the beginning of March, according to the French news agency.
In early September last year, the European Commission listed 22 key platforms belonging to 6 digital giant groups (the American companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and the Chinese ByteDance) on a list of entities that will be subject to rigorous regulatory procedures under the Digital Markets Act starting from March 6.
These companies will have to respect a series of prohibitions and commitments aimed at preventing the abuse of their dominant position in the market, with penalties of up to 20% of their global sales revenue looming if they fail to comply.
The platforms affected include 4 social networks – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and 2 instant messaging applications – WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as 3 operating systems – Android, iOS, and Windows, in addition to the Google search engine, and the internet browsers Chrome and Safari.
The list also includes 6 intermediary electronic services such as Google Maps, Google Play Store, Google Shopping, Amazon Market Plus, Apple App Store, and Meta Market Plus, along with the video platform YouTube, and the advertising services belonging to Google, Amazon, and Meta.
Among the new rules, the European Union will impose a feature that enables the interoperability of targeted messaging services, and Google will be prevented from adopting favoritism policies towards its services in its search engine results, following numerous accusations directed at the tech giant for using such policies in its e-commerce service “Google Shopping”.
The European Commission announced in September last year that investigations were being conducted to consider the inclusion of “iMessage” and “Bing” on the list alongside Microsoft’s browser “Edge” and its advertising service.
The Commission stated on Tuesday that it had “adopted decisions to close (these) four market investigations”. These services are currently exempt from the new law, but the Commission clarified that it will continue to “monitor market developments in case of significant changes”.
The investigation, which was also launched in September, is ongoing to include Apple’s operating system “iPad OS” within the scope of the new rules.
