LONDON (AP) — European Union watchdogs fined Apple and Meta hundreds of millions of euros Wednesday as they stepped up enforcement of the 27-nation bloc’s digital competition rules.
The European Commission imposed a 500 million euro ($571 million) fine on Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.
The commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, also fined Meta Platforms 200 million euros because it forced Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.
The punishments were smaller than the blockbuster multibillion-euro fines that the commission has previously slapped on Big Tech companies in antitrustcases.
Apple and Meta have to comply with the decisions within 60 days or risk unspecified “periodic penalty payments,” the commission said.
The decisions were expected to come in March, but officials apparently held off amid an escalating trans-Atlantic trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about regulations from Brussels affecting American companies.
The penalties were issued under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, also known as the DMA. It’s a sweeping rulebook that amounts to a set of do’s and don’ts designed to give consumers and businesses more choice and prevent Big Tech “gatekeepers” from cornering digital markets.
The DMA seeks to ensure “that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers,” Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, said in a statement.
“The decisions adopted today find that both Apple and Meta have taken away this free choice from their users and are required to change their behavior,” Virkkunen said.
Both companies indicated they would appeal.
Apple accused the commission of “unfairly targeting” the iPhone maker, and said it “continues to move the goal posts” despite the company’s efforts to comply with the rules.
Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in a statement that the “Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.”
In the App Store case, the Commission had accused the iPhone maker of imposing unfair rules preventing app developers from freely steering consumers to other channels.
Among the DMA’s provisions are requirements to let developers inform customers of cheaper purchasing options and direct them to those offers.
The commission said it ordered Apple to remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevent developers from steering users to other channels, and to end “non-compliant” conduct.
