FILE - European Commissioner for Europe fit for the Digital Age Margrethe Vestager speaks during a media conference regarding the Digital Markets Act at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, March 25, 2024. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, said on Monday, May 13, 2024, Booking.com meets the threshold to be classed as a “core platform service” under the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Markets Act.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, said Monday that it’s classing Booking Holdings as an online gatekeeper and that the company’sEuropean Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said the decision means that vacationers “will start benefiting from more choice and hotels will have more business opportunities.”
The company said it has “been working with the European Commission for some time as we anticipated today’s decision. We are reviewing their designation decision now and will continue to work constructively with them as we develop solutions to comply.” Booking Holdings, based in Norwalk, Connecticut, owns a slew of other travel sites including Cheapflights, Kayak.com and Priceline as well as restaurant reservation platform OpenTable, but those platforms aren’t included in the EU decision.Thousands protest in Georgia over the weekend against ‘Russia-style’ law on foreign influenceearlier this year, half a dozen companies have already been classified as online gatekeepers.
The commission said Booking.com “now has six months to comply with the relevant obligations under the DMA, offering more choice and freedom to end users and fair access of business users to the gatekeeper services.”