The European Commission on Wednesday found tech giants Apple and Meta in breach of obligations under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), fining the two US companies €500 million ($572 million) and €200 million respectively.
Apple was found to have breached its “anti-steering” obligation under the DMA, while Meta was considered not to have given consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data, another stipulation of the DMA.
However, the EU also closed an investigation of Apple over its user choice obligations after the tech giant complied with the DMA by making it easy to select a default browser and for users to remove pre-installed apps such as Safari.
What were the fines for?
Apple was fined after the Commission concluded that the company prevented developers from steering customers outside its App Store to allow them to access cheaper deals.
The fine was imposed on Meta over its “pay for privacy” system, which means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.
The Commission concluded that Meta did not provide Facebook and Instagram users a less personalized but equivalent version of the platforms, and “did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”
The Commission said that the fine on Meta concerned only the time period during which EU end users were solely offered the “consent of pay” option, from March 2024 to November 2024. That is when Meta introduced a new ads model allegedly using less personal data.
That model is currently under scrutiny by the EU.
Risk of more EU-US tensions
Both companies have issued complaints about the penalties, the first under the DMA, which came into effect last year.
Apple said in a statement that it would appeal the fine.
“Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,” it said.
“We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way,” the statement went on.
Meta, for its part, accused the EU of “attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards”.
The fines are also likely to increase tensions in relations between the EU and US President Donald Trump, who has frequently complained of unfair behavior by the bloc toward US businesses.
‘Firm but balanced action,’ says EU
Antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera said, however, in a statement that the fines “send a strong and clear message,” describing the action taken by the bloc as “firm but balanced.”
Thomas Regnier, European Commission spokesperson, also denied that the fines targeted any particular country.
“We don’t care who owns the company. We don’ care where the company is located,” he said.
“We are totally agnostic on that front from a European Union and from a Commission’s perspective. What we’re caring about is our consumers, our citizens, our businesses. And be it a Chinese company, be it an American company, or be it a European company, you will have to play by the rules in the European Union and this is the only thing we’re looking at.”
