EU officials agree on rules to rein in dominance of tech giants like Google, Meta, Apple

  • The Digital Markets Act prevent gatekeepers from ranking their own products or services higher than those of others
  • Violations could be punished with whopping fines of up to 10 per cent of a company’s annual income

A European Union flag flutters outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Photo: Reuters

European Union officials agreed Thursday on a landmark provisional agreement aimed at clamping down on the biggest online companies, dubbed digital “gatekeepers”, by laying out a list of dos and don’ts.

With those rules, the bloc is seeking to prevent tech giants like Google, Meta and Apple from dominating digital markets, a change from its previous practice of issuing big fines for past antitrust violations.

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