The DMA wants to make Europe’s digital markets fairer and more accessible by limiting the power of major online platforms, the so-called ‘gatekeepers”.
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On 28 April, the Commission concluded its first review of the DMA since its formal entry into force in 2022. Assessing the act’s implementation and enforcement, the Commission found that it “remains relevant and well-adapted to the evolving digital environment”.
“I broadly agree with the European Commission’s assessment […] [but] digital markets evolve rapidly, and the framework should not be seen as static, in particular with regards to AI and cloud”, said Andreas Schwab, Member of the European Parliament for the EPP and rapporteur of the DMA.
The Commission backed its analysis with 450 contributions from public consultations held between July and September 2025. While feedback was mostly positive, many asked for a better implementation of the act.
DMA supporters argue that the act is essential for ensuring a level playing field in the EU’s digital market and for giving consumers back control over their data. Critics say that it creates compliance issues, harms innovation, and deters investments.
The DMA is a heavy-handed, technical intervention by the Commission targeted to specific major companies only, which makes procedural compliance difficult and lacks a fair procedure of checks and balances, said Maria Teresa Stecher, Senior Policy Manager at the Computer and Communication Industry Association (CCIA) in Brussel.
CCIA represents four (Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta) out of seven goalkeepers identified by the EU.
Why the need?
Major online platforms, such as Booking, Google, and Amazon, dominate essential digital services like app stores, marketplaces, and search tools. This allows them to set unfair conditions, control data, dictate market access, and distort competition.
The increasing power of these platforms in the late 2010s and early 2020s led the EU to sharpen its control over the digital market, marking a shift in its regulatory approach.
The act prevents violations by limiting online platforms’ so-called “gatekeeper” power up front. It sets specific criteria for identifying “gatekeepers” and imposes preliminary obligations and prohibitions to make digital markets fairer and more competitive from the outset.
Before 2022, competition, consumer, and data protection laws imposed fines after breaches were found, allowing gatekeepers to maintain uncontrolled dominance. According to Stecher, “there was a political will to address certain companies specifically, they wanted to create a framework and name it, but competition law and proceedings could have achieved the same results” she explained.
The DMA labels companies as gatekeepers once they have reached an annual turnover of €7.5 billion over the last three years, a market value of €75 billion, and at least 45 million end users each month. Between 2023 and 2025, seven companies fell into this category: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft, and Booking. 23 of their online services are considered gateways.
The act requires platforms to enable third parties to interact with their services, access user-generated data, and promote offers outside of their platforms. They can no longer favour their own products, prevent users from uninstalling apps, or track user activity for advertising without consent.
Breaching the DMA includes a 10 percent fine on the companies’ total annual revenue (20 per cent for repeated violations) and a periodic penalty of 5 per cent of their average daily revenue. The Commission fined Apple €500 million and Meta €200 million in 2025, and on 16 April asked Google to grant third-party access to search data.
What’s in it for citizens and businesses?
The DMA offers more choice, more control, and a fairer online environment to consumers and businesses.
It allows consumers to choose among search engines and browsers, uninstall pre-installed apps, and download apps from third-party app stores.
“Today, consumers are able to choose what is their browser, their preferred browser, for example, on iOS, through what we call a choice screen”, explained Agustin Reyna, Director General of Consumer rights association BEUC.
Users also decide to which platform they want to transfer their data and how it is used across platforms, including for personalised advertising. Platforms’ recommendations will no longer bias search results for products and services.
Stecher pointed out that DMA-driven changes are making online navigation more complicated and less user-friendly. Users now have to go through intermediaries for search results, leading to less relevant search outcomes and higher prices.
Through the DMA, businesses have the same power to promote their services as major platforms and the same right to their own app stores. They can set their own product prices on gatekeepers’ platforms, offer innovative services to iOS, Android and Windows user, and access the data they generate while on the platforms.
“The Commission is not considering the negative effects on smaller companies that heavily rely on gatekeepers, which is causing annual losses between €8 billion and €114 billion”, Stecher said.
Schwab argued that “concerns about unintended consequences should be taken seriously, but they are often overstated […]. There is so far limited evidence of systemic negative spillovers, which is mainly a narrative deployed by the gatekeepers themselves”.
A limited experience
Despite early progress, the law is not really delivering its full impact, mostly due to practical shortcomings.
The Commission’s review found that the rules are being enforced slowly and unevenly, with some of the biggest tech companies complying only partially or in ways that dilute the intended effect. In some cases, platforms redesigned their apps and settings so that alternatives technically exist, but are harder to find or use, discouraging people from switching.
“They are much more reticent to changes, or the changes that they introduce are not fast enough, or they use certain techniques… to make more difficult for consumers to enjoy these rights,” observed Reyna.
There are also gaps in how it handles fast-moving technologies, namely artificial intelligence. The DMA was not written with today’s AI boom in mind, so regulators are still working out how to apply existing rules to tools like AI assistants and chatbots. This creates a risk that dominant firms could build their own AI services directly into operating systems or search engines.
Another weak spot is cloud computing. While it underpins much of the digital economy, it has not yet been fully brought under the DMA’s strictest controls. As a result, businesses still face difficulties switching providers or moving their data, leaving many tied to a single supplier. For users, this means fewer innovative services and higher pricing over time.
The Commission found issues with transparency, as large platforms’ compliance reports are often too vague to properly assess what is really happening behind the scenes. Smaller companies, researchers and consumer groups said they still struggle to understand how decisions are made or whether the rules are being followed in practice.
The review also shows friction between the DMA and other EU laws, particularly around data protection and cyber security. Companies argue that meeting one set of rules can sometimes clash with another. This slows down product changes or delays new features in Europe. For users, this can translate into a different (and sometimes more limited) digital experience.
These shortcomings mean that while people may now see more options on paper (choosing browsers, apps or data-sharing settings), the benefits are not always as clear in practice. Businesses, especially smaller ones, still face barriers when trying to compete with entrenched platforms.
Balancing the digital economy
The DMA promised fairer competition, fewer barriers for smaller firms, and greater control for consumers over their data and digital services. Despite its shortcomings, it has begun to deliver on several of those fronts.
Within just over two years, alternative browsers and app stores have gained visibility through new choice screens, leading to noticeable increases in their use and giving users more genuine options. More than 40 companies have already built new services using improved access to data, while new app marketplaces (some run by smaller European firms) have entered the market. Messaging services are also beginning to interoperate, meaning smaller providers can now connect with larger platforms like WhatsApp or Messenger.
For example, “Consumers are able to exchange messages from BirdChat, which is a Latvian startup with someone that is on WhatsApp”, said Reyna.
Users can now remove pre-installed apps, choose how their personal data is combined across services, and transfer data more easily between platforms. In practice, a “significant” number of users are opting out of data-sharing. There have also been improvements in online advertising transparency.
Reshaping, not resetting
The review makes clear that the law itself will stay in place, but the way it is applied must become sharper and more detailed. The Commission plans to intensify enforcement by opening more formal proceedings where needed and using “specification decisions” to spell out exactly how companies must comply.
According to Reyna, “Enforcement by the European Commission is fundamental… there is a point where dialogues also have a limit… the commission needs to become tougher in order to get these changes in the shorter term.”
A major focus is cloud computing. The Commission has launched market investigations to decide whether services like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure should be formally designated as gatekeepers, which would bring stricter obligations on data portability, switching and interoperability.
Regulators are also looking at whether AI assistants and similar tools should fall under existing categories and are already pushing for additional rules that ensure AI services can be changed easily by users and can connect fairly with operating systems and search data. In practical terms, this affects how default AI tools are set on devices.
The Commission also plans to develop new guidance to clarify how companies handle user consent, data sharing and portability. There is also a push to refine requirements around consumer profiling, including clearer reporting on how user data is used and potentially stricter templates for disclosure.
As for transparency, which needs to be upgraded, compliance reports could become more detailed, making it easier to compare what different platforms are doing and to identify gaps. Likewise, the Commission itself would share more information about its ongoing investigations and regulatory discussions.
To streamline how the system works, it will also simplify templates for companies, improve coordination with national regulators, and possibly update the implementing rules that govern how the DMA is enforced. There is also growing attention on private enforcement, to empower businesses and consumer groups to bring cases themselves.
Finally, the Commission will use the law’s built-in “future-proofing” tools more actively. That means expanding the scope to new services where necessary, updating obligations through guidance rather than legislation, and keeping pace with fast-changing sectors like AI without reopening the entire rulebook.
For citizens, these changes make everyday digital services more flexible and less restrictive. It should become easier to switch between apps, control how personal data is used, and choose alternatives to default services on phones or online platforms.
For companies, especially smaller ones, the measures will level the playing field. Easier access to data, fairer conditions on app stores and operating systems, and the ability to compete with built-in services could open up new business opportunities. At the same time, large tech firms will face stricter oversight and clearer rules, which may limit some of their current advantages but also provide more certainty about what is expected of them.
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