2024-07-17 16:19:45
TikTok will have to comply with market rules. The European Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by the social network, owned by the Chinese group Byte Dance, to escape the new obligations introduced from March by the Digital Products Regulation (DMA). ByteDance went to the General Court of the EU in November to request the annulment of this decision.
The EU General Court found on Wednesday “that the Commission may consider Bytedance to be a gatekeeper”. He noted “that it is not disputed that Bytedance reached the size thresholds provided for in the DMA”.
As a reminder, TikTok was designated last September by the European Commission as one of the platforms under this new law which aims to end the monopoly of these American behemoths in the EU. The goal is also to better inform the users of these platforms about their actions.
This characteristic also applies to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook group), Microsoft – and, from May, to the Dutch hotel reservation site. To give you an idea, the DMA, implemented last March, now forces Apple to accept stores other than the Apple Store on its products.
The new regulation applies to groups active in at least three European countries, exceeding 75 billion euros in market size or 7.5 billion in sales in Europe, and registering at least 45 million users 10,000 active end and business users in Europe.
TikTok does not feel concerned by the regulation of digital products
Unless Tiktok is not bothered by DMA rates in the same way as GAFAM mentioned. The General Court of the EU rejected a request for interim relief from ByteDance on the same subject in early February.
According to the Chinese social network, this decision “risks undermining the goal of the DMA said to protect the real portals of new competitors such as TikTok. Far from being the revenue leader, our platform, which has been operating in Europe for more than five years, is undoubtedly the most competent competitor to the services of more established platforms. “
For ByteDance, Tiktok is not in a monopoly position. Even more, the social network would have been a victim of the competitive pressure that the DMA intends to control. Without naming names, ByteDance said “some of them have taken advantage of the existing market to compare our initial market experience, quickly gaining significant scale that took years to build.”
In fact, it is Meta Group Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts which the company targets with short formats and power similar to TikToks. The company has not yet responded to the decision of the European court.
The remaining companies face fines of up to 10% of their global turnover, or 20% in the event of a repeat offence, or even expulsion measures in the most serious cases.
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