While Samsung Display is an advanced display supplier for Apple devices, make no mistake that Samsung is one of Apple's strongest competitors. This week, Patently Apple posted a report titled "The EU Commission is Drunk with Power by Opening a Probe into whether iPadOS should be altered to satisfy the Digital Markets Act." Further, the EU Commission designated Apple as one of the six U.S. tech giants considered to be "gatekeepers" and be subject to stricter regulations designed to punish innovative platforms that EU companies just couldn't compete with without government intervention.

A report by the Korea Times claims that Samsung Electronics is expected to benefit from the European Union's decision made public on Wednesday.

Samsung was able to avoid the new rules, as it reportedly succeeded in convincing the commission to regard it as a "manufacturer" of smartphones, rather than an online platform provider.

"The commission has concluded that, although Gmail, Outlook.com and Samsung Internet Browser meet the thresholds under the DMA to qualify as gatekeepers, Alphabet, Microsoft and Samsung provided sufficiently justified arguments showing that these services do not qualify as gateways for the respective core platform services," the commission said." It follows that Samsung is not designated as a gatekeeper with respect to any core platform service."

Samsung welcomed the decision, saying there will be no change to its business strategies.

In contrast, it will become difficult for Apple to avoid suffering a setback in its European operations, because iPhone users will be allowed to download apps outside of the App Store and provide limited personal data to the U.S. firm.

In addition, the European Commission has not ruled out the possibility of putting Apple's iMessage on the list of core platform services subject to the DMA regulations.

An unnamed IT industry insider stated that "Apple will face difficulties in taking advantage of its closed ecosystem to maintain its lead in the premium market. Samsung has been able to avoid potential problems in selling its smartphones in Europe."

There's little doubt that the one or more of the gatekeepers will file lawsuits against the latest decision by the EU Commission.

Apple said Wednesday that it was "very concerned about the privacy and data security risks the DMA poses for our users" and said it would seek to "mitigate these impacts." For more, read the full Korea Times report.

While one would think that the Biden administration would step in with countermeasures against European imports to hurt their economy in retaliation for interfering with platforms that U.S. companies invented fair and square, it's not going to happen.

Although U.S. Big Tech helped to elect Biden, Democrat Senator Klobuchar was pushing for the same type of legislation that Europe is implementing in U.S. back in 2021. In that same year, Lina Khan was assigned by the Biden administration to rein in big tech. Then in 2022, Patently Apple posted a report titled "With Antitrust Legislation against Big Tech still building, the DOJ is apparently in the Wings drafting a possible antitrust suit against Apple." 

At the end of the day, how could the Biden administration step in to take on the EU Commission when his own administration holds a similar position that the EU Commission does? Big Tech will simply have to fight it out in the courts in both the U.S. and Europe.  

As far as Samsung goes, I'm not quite sure that I understand their jubilance in the EU's decision. I suspect that 80% of Apple fans will remain faithful to the apps that they currently use on their iPhones and iPads. It's not like Apple has been ordered to create an iPhone running Android. So I don't see why the EU's decision would benefit Samsung in any major way. Do you? Send in your comments below or on our Twitter feed.