EU DMA Applicability Test

Begin with Article 2, not with general platform labels. A service can only move through this applicability test if it fits one of the DMA core platform service categories.

The DMA categories are online intermediation services, online search engines, online social networking services, video-sharing platform services, number-independent interpersonal communications services, operating systems, web browsers, virtual assistants, cloud computing services, and certain online advertising services linked to another listed core platform service.

Article 3 has three substantive criteria: significant impact on the internal market, a core platform service that is an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and an entrenched and durable position or a foreseeable entrenched and durable position.

The quantitative presumption is met where the undertaking reaches the size threshold and the individual core platform service reaches the EU user thresholds. The undertaking-level size threshold is annual Union turnover of at least EUR 7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years, or average market capitalisation or equivalent fair market value of at least EUR 75 billion in the last financial year, plus provision of the same core platform service in at least three Member States.

The user-count step must follow the DMA Annex methodology. It uses unique users counted once for the relevant core platform service over the relevant period: a month for active end users and a year for active business users.

For monthly active end users, the DMA Annex looks to the average number of monthly active end users throughout the largest part of the financial year. For active business users, the count is generally at business-account level where that concept applies. The Annex then defines the activity indicator separately for each service category, so a sign-in count cannot be reused automatically across search, intermediation, advertising, operating-system, browser, cloud, or messaging services.

If all Article 3(2) thresholds are met, the undertaking must notify the Commission without delay and in any event within two months, identifying each core platform service that meets the service-level user thresholds. The Commission must designate an undertaking that meets the presumptive thresholds without undue delay and at the latest within 45 working days after receiving complete information, unless sufficiently substantiated arguments manifestly call the presumption into question.

A notifying undertaking may submit sufficiently substantiated arguments that, despite meeting the thresholds, the relevant core platform service does not satisfy the Article 3(1) requirements. If those arguments manifestly call the presumption into question, the Commission can open the Article 17(3) market-investigation procedure.

The output of the applicability test should be a defensible evidence file, not a yes/no memo. If a designation decision lists a core platform service, the gatekeeper must comply with Articles 5, 6, and 7 within six months after that service is listed.

The Commission's Article 11 compliance-report template shows the type of evidence that later becomes important: per-service and per-obligation explanations, supporting data, internal documents, implementation dates, product and geographic scope, technical or engineering changes, customer-experience changes, terms changes, consultations, alternatives considered, and user communications.

Record one of four outcomes for each service: outside the Article 2 core-platform-service categories; within a category but below one or more presumptive thresholds and not designated; notification required because all Article 3(2) presumptions are met; or designated by Commission decision. The second outcome still needs monitoring because Article 3(8) permits designation after a market investigation without every quantitative threshold.