Digital Markets Act: EU court confirms Apple’s status as digital gatekeeper

Under the DMA, the Commission can designate digital platforms as gatekeepers if they represent an important gateway to consumers. Companies then have special obligations to ensure fair competition on digital markets. The background is the fear that some large platform operators have become so powerful that they could cement their market position.

By a commission decision, Apple has been on the gatekeepers’ list since September 2023 with the App Store, iOS and Safari services. This includes other tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta. Some of the companies, including Apple, took legal action against the Brussels authority’s classification.

Court: App Store is a unified service

The Luxembourg court confirmed, among other things, the Commission’s assessment that the versions of the app store for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac and Apple TV represent one and the same central platform service. They had the same purpose, namely to bring together software developers and end users, it was said. From Apple’s perspective, the stores should have been considered individually. This would have meant that only the iOS App Store would have met the required thresholds for gatekeeper designation.

In addition, Apple took action against the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communication service – i.e. as a service in which communication is not based on a telephone number from the public telephone network, but rather on user names or accounts. The court declared the lawsuits inadmissible. This classification alone does not produce any binding legal effects that change Apple’s legal status, it said.