Companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung have informed the European Commission that they meet the criteria, established by the EU when adopting the Digital Markets Act, reports Engadget.

This allows companies to be classified as gatekeepers. According to Reuters, Booking.com expects to achieve this status by the end of the year as well and to notify the authorities about it.

“Gatekeepers” are companies with an annual turnover in Europe of at least 7.5 billion euros ($8.16 billion) in the last three financial years or companies with a fair market value of at least 75 billion euros ($81.6 billion) in the last financial year in at least three EU member states.

They must also serve more than 45 million monthly active end users and more than 10 thousand active business users annually in the EU for the last three years.

Such criteria were designed to include the biggest players in the industry, as the name of the law suggests, it is intended to cover large online platforms that act as “gatekeepers” to digital markets.

According to the law, “gatekeepers” will be prohibited from favoring their own services over those of competitors and “locking” users into their ecosystem. They must allow third parties to interact with their own services.

They must also allow business users to promote their products/services and “conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeepers’ platform.” In the case of Google and Apple, this means that they cannot prevent developers from using payment systems other than their own. Companies also cannot prevent users from removing pre-installed apps or downloading apps from external sources.

Goalkeepers will have to comply with all aspects of the law in 2024. European authorities are currently reviewing the submitted applications and will appoint “gatekeepers” for specific platform services by September 6.