The Digital Markets Act, two years on: what the 2026 review changed for Big Tech
Two years after the Digital Markets Act (DMA) became enforceable in March 2024, the European Commission has completed its first review. The headline finding: the regulation has, in the Commission’s words, effectively contributed to the core objectives of making digital markets in the EU fairer and more contestable. The detail is more nuanced — and so is the industry reaction.
What the DMA actually does
The DMA designates certain large online platforms as gatekeepers when they meet thresholds on turnover, user numbers, and entrenched market position. Designated services include search engines, app stores, online marketplaces, social networks, video-sharing platforms, instant messaging, advertising services, web browsers, and operating systems. Gatekeepers face obligations and prohibitions designed to level the playing field for business users and consumers — from interoperability requirements to bans on self-preferencing.
The current designations
The Commission has, since 2023, designated a set of major platforms operated by US and Chinese companies as gatekeepers — covering services from app stores and operating systems to social networks and online marketplaces. Each designation triggers six months of preparation, after which compliance becomes enforceable. Several designations have prompted both substantive changes by the platforms and litigation challenging the designations themselves.
What has changed for users
European consumers have noticed visible changes. Choice screens for default browsers and search engines now appear on operating systems. App store competition has begun to emerge with alternative stores authorised on certain platforms. Messaging interoperability remains in early implementation. Data portability tools are more prominent. The user experience is in transition — sometimes confusingly so — as platforms reconcile DMA compliance with their existing product designs.
Enforcement: the cases so far
The Commission has opened multiple non-compliance investigations, particularly around app store rules, self-preferencing in search, and the design of consent flows. Penalties under the DMA can reach 10% of global turnover, rising to 20% for repeat offenders, and the Commission can impose structural remedies in cases of systematic non-compliance. The first major fines and remedies cases are being closely watched as precedent-setting.
What the review proposed
The 2026 review concluded that the core architecture of the DMA is working but identified areas for adjustment: clearer guidance on specific obligations, faster procedural timelines, better coordination with member-state competition authorities, and adjustments to the designation thresholds to capture emerging gatekeeper-like positions in AI services. A targeted legislative update is expected to follow.
The wider regulatory ecosystem
The DMA does not stand alone. It works alongside the Digital Services Act (DSA, on illegal content and platform governance), the EU competition law framework, sectoral rules in payments and telecoms, and increasingly the AI Act. The platforms in scope of multiple regimes are navigating overlapping obligations, while the Commission is building a more integrated enforcement machine. For Big Tech, the European regulatory environment is structurally different from anywhere else in the world — and 2026 is the year it became unmistakably so.
