Brussels, Feb 5, 2026, 14:31 (CET)
- EU Commission says Apple Ads and Apple Maps will not be designated DMA “gatekeeper” services
- Regulator points to low EU usage of Apple Maps and limited scale of Apple Ads in EU online advertising
- Apple welcomes the decision; Commission says it will keep monitoring both services
The European Commission said Apple Ads and Apple Maps should not be designated as “gatekeeper” services under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a label reserved for platforms seen as key routes between businesses and consumers. It said Apple does not qualify as a gatekeeper for the two services because neither is an important gateway for business users to reach end users. The Commission cited Apple Maps’ low usage in the bloc and the limited scale of Apple Ads in the EU online advertising market, and said it will monitor market developments after Apple notified the services on Nov. 27, 2025. (Digital Markets Act (DMA))
The timing matters because a gatekeeper designation is the trigger for the DMA’s rulebook: once a service is in, it faces a set of obligations and prohibitions meant to make digital markets “fairer and more open.” Keeping Ads and Maps out narrows the immediate reach of those obligations for Apple in two areas where the company has pushed to broaden its services business. (Digital Markets Act (DMA))
The DMA entered into force on Nov. 1, 2022 and became applicable on May 2, 2023, setting up a process that relies on company notifications and Commission decisions. After a notification, the Commission has 45 working days to decide whether to designate a gatekeeper, a rhythm that has forced repeated calls on where the law begins and ends. (Digital Markets Act (DMA))
Apple welcomed Thursday’s decision. “These services face significant competition in Europe,” the company said. Reuters described the DMA as one of the world’s strictest efforts to curb the market power of major tech firms and make it easier for users to switch between competing services. (Reuters)
The Commission’s reasoning was blunt: scale and use. It treated Apple Ads as an online advertising service and examined Apple Maps as an online intermediation service, but said neither one functions as a must-pass bridge for businesses trying to reach consumers.
Apple is not off the DMA hook. The Commission has already designated Apple as a gatekeeper for other core platform services, including the App Store, iOS and Safari, and later for iPadOS, its tablet operating system. Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft are also on the EU’s gatekeeper list. (Digital Markets Act (DMA))
In DMA jargon, an “online intermediation service” is a platform that can connect businesses with users. In practice, the Commission is asking whether a service is the sort of thing businesses cannot sidestep if they want to reach people at scale.
For Apple, the decision means Ads and Maps will not be pulled into the extra compliance work tied to designated services under the DMA. It also keeps the Commission’s gatekeeper obligations focused on Apple’s already-designated platforms, rather than extending them to two adjacent products.
But the Commission said it will keep watching, and can revisit the call if market conditions shift or the services become materially more important gateways. That is the uncertainty hanging over the decision: it closes one file, not the topic.
The Commission said it will publish a non-confidential version of its decision on its DMA website.
