Three years after becoming applicable in May 2023, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) has transitioned from being just a legislative framework to become an active digital enforcement tool reshaping Europe’s digital landscape. The progress the European Commission has made demonstrates its commitment to achieve the DMA objectives of supporting fair and contestable digital markets in the EU and, in turn, promoting fair competition.
The DMA was the first legislation of its kind worldwide, providing a comprehensive set of new rules fit for the current digital age, regulating major tech companies known as “gatekeepers”. The DMA divides its rules into explicit obligations (“do’s”) and prohibitions (“don’ts”) for designated gatekeepers, requiring gatekeepers to open their services to competitors and preventing them from favouring their own products, all to the benefit of consumers.
The European Commission opened six non-compliance investigations in 2024. In 2025, the commission adopted two landmark non-compliance decisions, imposing fines on Apple and Meta related to the anti-steering and consumers’ options on the use of their personal data (the pay-or-consent case) respectively. The commission also closed its investigation into Apple’s user choice obligations after the gatekeeper undertook numerous compliance changes.
The commission’s decisions against Apple and Meta enhance consumer choice by promoting alternative purchasing options and strengthening users’ control over their personal data.
Three other cases are still ongoing as the commission issued two preliminary findings of non-compliance against Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search in March 2025 and against Apple’s contract terms concerning alternative app distribution in May 2025.
New investigations in 2025
On November 13, 2025, the commission opened a non-compliance investigation to assess whether Alphabet was possibly in breach of the DMA by demoting media publishers’ contents in search results.
The commission’s monitoring work shows that Google is demoting news media and other publishers’ websites and content in Google search results when those websites include content from commercial partners, in line with its ‘site reputation abuse policy’. Thus, the commission argues that Google is failing in its obligation to treat independent businesses fairly and non-discriminatorily.
Google claims its adopted policy prevents search ranking manipulation. However, publishers complain that they are being strongly affected, losing all or almost all traffic to their subdomains.
The Commission also opened three market investigations related to the cloud sector on November 18, 2025. Two market investigations are assessing whether Amazon and Microsoft should be qualitatively designated as gatekeepers for their cloud computing services Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, despite not meeting the DMA’s quantitative thresholds.
Recent data of cloud markets seems to indicate that AWS and Azure occupy very strong positions in relation to businesses and consumers. Although cloud computing may appear distant from consumers’ daily lives, competition in this sector can influence the quality, innovation and cost of many digital services that individuals and businesses rely upon.
The commission’s third market investigation will assess if existing DMA obligations sufficiently address contestability and fairness concerns in the EU’s cloud computing sector.
Specification proceedings
A specification procedure is a formal mechanism that the commission uses to define exact measures that a designated gatekeeper must implement to effectively comply with its core obligations under the DMA.
One fundamental obligation on gatekeepers is to allow interoperability – the ability of third-party hardware and software to interact seamlessly with the gatekeepers’ own core operating system.
In 2025, the commission adopted two decisions specifying the measures Apple had to take to comply with certain aspects of its interoperability obligation in relation to its connected devices, such as smartwatches and other wearables. Apple had to take measures to enable interoperability with iOS for third-party connected devices and by streamlining the process put in place to handle future requests for interoperability with iPhone and iPad devices. The commission is engaged in a similar ongoing dialogue with Alphabet in 2026, whereby it has opened two specification proceedings to assist Google comply with its interoperability and online search data sharing rules.
The commission aims to specify how Google should grant third-party artificial intelligence service providers equally effective access to the same features as those available to Google’s own services, enabling third parties to truly develop competitive alternatives to Gemini to prevent entrenchment.
Furthermore, by granting third-party providers of online search engines access to anonymised ranking, query, click and view data held by Google Search, smaller online search engines will be able to optimise their services and effectively compete with Google.
Conclusion
Following its first review of the DMA, the commission concluded that it remains fit for purpose. The DMA has been effective in forcing gatekeepers to modify their behaviour for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.
The DMA has opened gatekeepers’ ecosystems, enabling businesses to better compete, while, at the same time, expanded consumer choice, giving them access to more diverse and innovative digital products and services.
Sean Buttigieg is senior manager (Economics), Office for Competition, MCCAA.
