By Foo Yun Chee<\/p>\n
LUXEMBOURG, May 12 (Reuters) – Bytedance’s social media platform TikTok on Tuesday made a last- ditch attempt at Europe’s top court to scrap its \u200cdesignation as a “gatekeeper” under EU rules, which require it to meet tougher standards \u200cas regulators seek to curb the power of Big Tech.<\/p>\n
The case–the first EU Digital Markets Act “gatekeeper” challenge heard by \u200bthe EU Court of Justice–could bolster or weaken Europe’s attempt to rein in Big Tech to ensure competition and more choice for users.<\/p>\n
TikTok was designated a “gatekeeper” under DMA in September 2023, joining other companies with more than 45 million monthly users. These included Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms, Apple<\/a>, \u200cAmazon, Microsoft<\/a> and Booking.com.<\/p>\n A lower court \u2060tribunal had in 2024 thrown out TikTok’s challenge, saying it met DMA criteria for the gatekeeper designation.<\/p>\n The DMA sets out an onerous list of \u2060requirements aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech, with infringement fines as high as 10% of a company’s annual turnover.<\/p>\n DOESN’T MEET THE EU’S CRITERIA, TIKTOK SAYS<\/p>\n TikTok argued the tribunal had erred in \u200bits \u200bruling that the company failed all three criteria for \u200bgatekeeper status: significant market impact, acting \u200cas a key business gateway to users, and holding an entrenched market position.<\/p>\n “ByteDance showed not only that its market cap is overwhelmingly derived from its Asian businesses but also they had no connection to Europe, face different competitive dynamics and operate in a distinct regulatory, linguistic and cultural environment,” TikTok’s lawyer Bill Batchelor said at Europe’s top court.<\/p>\n He told the panel of \u200c15 judges that 70%-80% of TikTok users use \u200bmultiple other platforms in parallel, including Meta Platform’s Facebook and \u200bInstagram, Snap and X, and hence \u200bwere not locked into TikTok’s ecosystem.<\/p>\n “We refer to this as ‘multihoming.’ That means \u200cbusinesses can reach the same end users \u200bvia multiple other platforms,” \u200bBatchelor said.<\/p>\n A European Commission lawyer dismissed TikTok’s arguments.<\/p>\n “Lock-in can occur even when some degree of multihoming exists. For example, there may be specific user groups that depend on \u200bTikTok,” Mislav Mataija told the \u200cCourt.<\/p>\n The Court will rule in the coming months. Meta Platforms is also contesting \u200bits gatekeeper designation for Messenger and Marketplace.<\/p>\n The case is C-627\/24 P Bytedance v \u200bCommission.<\/p>\n (Reporting by Foo Yun CheeEditing by Bernadette Baum)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Foo Yun Chee LUXEMBOURG, May 12 (Reuters) – Bytedance’s social media platform TikTok on Tuesday made a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3918,39,4,40,6718,25375],"class_list":{"0":"post-39307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-big-tech","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european-union","12":"tag-tiktok","13":"tag-top-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}