EU imposes strict obligations on Booking.com under Digital Markets Act 

Booking.com, which is headquartered in Amsterdam, said it was reviewing the EU's designation decision as it develops ways to comply. 

The European Commission has designated travel services website Booking.com a “gatekeeper” and as a result will be subject to strict obligations under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, marking the latest crackdown on the market power of larger tech firms.

The move means the firm has six months to make sure it complies with a raft of preemptive measures under the act, which aims to prevent competition abuses before they take hold.

Following the decision, the EU commissioner responsible for antitrust Margrethe Vestager said “holidaymakers will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities”.

A Booking.com spokesperson said the company was reviewing the designation decision as it develops solutions to comply with the law. X said it welcomed the EU announcement about its advertising business and continues to cooperate with the regulatory process.

The DMA is intended to head off competition violations by tech firms before they take root. It will be applied to companies with more than 45 million monthly active users and 10,000 yearly business users.

In addition to changing Booking.com’s designation, the commission announced reprieves for the ads business of Elon Musk's X platform, formerly known as Twitter, and ByteDance’s TikTok. It determined the online advertising services of these two social networks did not qualify as gatekeepers.

Regulators also opened a market investigation into whether the rest of X’s services should be covered by the DMA.

The DMA strikes at the heart of the business models of six of the world’s most powerful technology firms deemed to be digital “gatekeepers”. Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and TikTok owner ByteDance have all been targeted for new obligations by the commission. 

Under the rules, it will be illegal for certain platforms to favour their own services over those of rivals.

They will be barred from combining personal data across their different services, and prohibited from using data they collect from third-party merchants to compete against them, among other prohibitions and obligations.

Should a company which has been designated as a “gatekeeper” not comply with the DMA, the commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the company’s global turnover. This can be increased to 20% in the case of repeat offences.

Bloomberg