If the DMA is fit for purpose why are the gatekeepers winning?

A milestone for EU’s digital rulebook

On 28 April, the European Commission published its first formal review of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) as required by the regulation. EDRi welcomes the Commission’s renewed commitment to ensuring a strong DMA, a law with the massive potential to protect people and EU markets against gatekeeper abuse.

Europe’s efforts to enable digital market contestability and to advance people’s digital self-determination and choice are only achievable by bold legislation that is swiftly enforced with decisive and clear consequences for infringing gatekeepers.

Strong principle, weak enforcement

Since the application of the DMA three years ago, there have been some successes as gatekeepers were forced to introduce a number of meaningful changes: for example, smartphone users in Europe now see choice screens that enable them to select the search engine and browser they wish to use. Similarly, gatekeepers now must ask people for consent before sharing their personal data across different services.

Unfortunately, these early wins are darkly overshadowed by massive cases of non-compliance and deliberate circumvention by almost all gatekeepers. Here are a few examples:

• Apple continues to control which apps people can use on their iPhones, despite the DMA’s explicit obligation to allow independent app stores and other app distribution channels.
• Inspired by Apple’s consequence-free rule breaking, Google has announced that it will follow suit and put in place similar gatekeeping mechanisms in its Android app stores. And in a good old waylaying tradition, both companies charge a fee for that gatekeeping “service.”
• Google also continues to prevent Android smartphone users from removing pre-installed apps, despite the DMA’s clear obligation to allow it. The gatekeeper claims the verb “to uninstall” that is used in the DMA doesn’t actually mean “to remove.”

Due to a broad lack of enforcement transparency, it remains unclear what the European Commission thinks about these infringements, and whether it intends to act upon or even investigate them.

The DMA’s success cannot be measured by its ambition on paper, but by its enforcement in practice. Here, the gap between promise and reality is difficult to ignore.

To make things worse, Commission President Von der Leyen herself has reportedly delayed an already finalised billion-euro fine against Google. If confirmed, such interference at the highest political level would represent a serious breach of the principle that enforcement must remain independent and grounded in facts.

The DMA cannot function if its application is subject to political considerations. No exceptions can be made and no preferential treatment can be afforded to gatekeepers found to be in breach of the law. Any perception of political meddling undermines not only the credibility of the DMA, but also the European Union’s broader commitment to upholding the rule of law. Ultimately, it is people’s trust in fair and impartial governance that is at stake.

Effective enforcement is a political choice

The review also fails to call for a broader and long-overdue shift way from the Commission’s preferred approach of “regulatory dialogue” with gatekeepers towards more adversarial enforcement. While engagement with gatekeepers is necessary, betting on dialogue when some of the largest tech companies actively sabotage the law seems like losing strategy.

The Commission should stop “working with gatekeepers towards compliance” and instead simply require it. No other industry – or individuals for that matter – gets so much leniency as the gatekeepers for breaking the law.

This shift is particularly critical given the Commission’s broader turn toward deregulation. Initiatives such as the Digital Omnibus proposal risk weakening hard-won safeguards under industry pressure, while planned revisions to the Better Regulation guidelines could further sideline democratic scrutiny. In this context, any hesitation in enforcing the DMA sends the wrong signal.

A strong DMA enforcement is not just a technical necessity, it is a political test. Europe has equipped itself with a landmark law to rein in digital gatekeepers and rebalance power in the digital economy, now it must enforce this legislation decisively, independently and without compromise.