‘EU is also considering not including Microsoft Bing and Edge under DMA’

Microsoft’s Edge browser and Bing search engine are likely to be exempt from the European Digital Markets Act. Insiders report this to Bloomberg. According to the news agency, the European Commission concluded that the two services are not dominant enough.

European Commission officials are leaning toward an exemption for Microsoft’s two services, anonymous sources report to Bloomberg. Microsoft’s advertising platform would also probably not fall under the DMA. According to officials, the services are not dominant enough to fall under the Digital Markets Act, which is intended to make small services better compete with the dominant services of six major ‘gatekeepers’, which also includes Microsoft. The European Commission did not respond to questions from the news agency.

According to Bloomberg, the EU previously considered exempting Apple iMessage from the DMA for similar reasons, although this has not yet been officially confirmed by the EU. The exemption for Bing and Edge has also not yet been confirmed by the European Commission. The Microsoft services that were previously classified by the EU under the DMA continue to fall under competition law.

In September, the European Commission appointed the first six gatekeepers under the DMA, who together have 22 services that will fall under the law. The EU said at the time that it was already investigating additional services that may have to fall under the DMA. This involved Microsoft Bing and Edge and Microsoft Advertising, in addition to Apple iMessage. The EU is also said to be investigating iPadOS, although that is still ongoing.

Several gatekeepers also objected to their designation under the DMA. This concerns Apple, Meta and TikTok parent company ByteDance. Those companies do not believe that their respective services should be covered by the legislation. The DMA will finally come into effect at the beginning of March. From then on, designated services must comply with the legislation.

Gatekeepers and their services covered by the DMA. Source: European Union