TikTok owner ByteDance lost its court battle challenging the European Union’s classification of it as a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act. The victory for EU antitrust regulators underscores its seriousness about reining in the power of Big Tech. As a gatekeeper, China’s ByteDance is lumped in with behemoths Google, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, among others. The DMA, which was passed in 2022 and came into effect this year, says gatekeepers must make certain aspects of their apps interoperable with rivals and forbids self-dealing, with stiff fines imposed for those found to fail.

As the first lawsuit taking on the DMA, the ByteDance case was closely watched. Bloomberg points out that “the decision can be appealed to the bloc’s top court, the European Court of Justice.”

The EU judiciary said in its Wednesday ruling that “TikTok met the necessary thresholds to be brought under the scope of the DMA,” and ByteDance’s effort to appeal the European Commission classification “wasn’t substantiated,” Bloomberg writes, adding that the TikTok camp said it was “disappointed,” but was already actively complying with the DMA just in case.

In announcing the decision, the EU Court of Justice emphasized that the EU legislature adopted the DMA in order to ensure “fairness of markets in the digital sector in general, and for business users and end users of core platform services provided by gatekeepers in particular,” meaning that the elite bunch will get close scrutiny.

“ByteDance had painted TikTok as an up and comer in the EU market, citing pushback through the development of Reels and Shorts,” reports Engadget, noting that the General Court disagreed, explaining in its ruling that while the short-form video platform may have been emergent in, say, 2018, it “rapidly consolidated its position, and even strengthened that position over the following years.”

The judges said ByteDance met DMA gatekeeper thresholds, which take into account global market value, the number of users within the EU and years during which an entity has operated at scale, among other things.

Amazon and Booking.com have also been designated gatekeepers, Reuters notes, adding that “Apple has also challenged the DMA, saying that its five App Stores on iPhones, iPads, Mac computers, Apple TVs and Apple Watches should not be labeled as a single core platform service.”