The European Commission has labeled travel website Booking as a ‘gatekeeper’ under the European Digital Markets Act. This was announced by Commissioners Margrethe Vestager (Competition Policy) and Thierry Breton (Internal Market).
The Digital Markets Act is intended to guarantee fair competition on digital platforms. Because the market is dominated by a small number of online platforms, these gatekeepers are subject to additional obligations. After Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Bytedance (TikTok), Meta (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook) and Microsoft, the Commission has now also labeled Booking as a gatekeeper.
“Holidaymakers will enjoy more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities,” said Commissioner Vestager, summarizing the impact of her decision. Commissioner Breton calls Booking “an important player in the European tourism ecosystem”.
Six months
The company will have six months to meet the new obligations. For example, Booking will not be allowed to impose unfair conditions on business users, certain forms of bundle sales will be prohibited and personal data collected for one service will not be allowed to be used for another service. However, some obligations take effect immediately, such as the obligation to inform the Commission of possible new concentrations in the digital sector.
Companies that are designated as gatekeepers and do not comply with the imposed requirements risk a fine of up to 10 percent of global turnover. This can even increase to 20 percent in the event of recidivism.
X registers a protest
The Commission would also have liked to appoint X as gatekeeper, but the social network protested. The former Twitter meets the legal thresholds (at least 45 million active users per month and a turnover of 7.5 billion euros over three financial years), but argues that it is not an important intermediary between companies and consumers. The Commission will now investigate the matter in detail through a market survey. The investigation must be completed within five months.
Two other service providers are not classified as gatekeepers, even though they meet the quantitative thresholds. This concerns X Ads and TikTok Ads, the advertising services of the two social networking sites.
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Tags: Holidaymakers choice travel website Booking labeled gatekeeper Economy
