The well-known Dutch booking website Booking.com has been labeled a "gatekeeper" by the European Commission, meaning that the company must now abide by stricter European rules. The Commission thus seeks to stimulate competition in the market and protect users within the EU from possible abuse of the monopoly of superpowers in the online world.
A gatekeeper, according to the European Commission's definitions, is a company that is an important medium between businesses and consumers. In practice, these are companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and more than 10,000 annual active business users. In addition, the company must have more than 7.5 billion euros in annual sales. If this is the case, the company becomes subject to the European Digital Markets Act (DMA).
In a press release yesterday, the European Commission announced that Booking.com is now also covered by the DMA. This adds the globally known travel platform to a list of six other gatekeepers, namely Alphabet (Google, YouTube), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) and Microsoft (Windows, LinkedIn). This list was compiled last September. All of these companies are expected to operate fully in line with DMA rules starting in March.
Booking.com applied itself for possible qualification for the DMA in March of this year. Now that the EC has agreed, the company will be given six months to ensure it operates in accordance with the relevant obligations of the DMA. This means Booking.com must offer "more choice and freedom to end users," as well as "fair access for business users," according to the press release. Whether this also means changing the options and prices for hotels on the website remains to be seen.
The EC will oversee whether the implementation of the DMA rules is going well. If not, Booking.com risks a fine of up to 10% of its total worldwide turnover. In the case of new violations, this could even go up to 20% of sales.
In addition to Booking.com, the social medium X (formerly Twitter) is also on the list of possible candidates for the "gatekeeper" position. The Commission indicates in the same press release that it launched a market investigation after X offered rebuttals to possibly being included in the list of companies subject to the DMA.
X claims that the platform is not an important medium between businesses and consumers. Investigations into this claim are expected to be completed within five months. It has been announced, however, that online advertising service X Ads will not be named as a gatekeeper.
ByteDance also appealed the decision to include its advertising platform, TikTok Ads. Again, the Commission decided not to list TikTok Ads as a gatekeeper, although other services by ByteDance are listed.
(1) https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_2561
(2) https://www.vpngids.nl/unblock/geld-besparen/beinvloeden-cookies-ip-adres-locatie-prijzen-vluchten-hotels/
