European Union times Apple And Meta Hundreds of millions of euros on Wednesday when they intensified the application of the digital competition rules of the 27 country block.
The European Commission imposed a fine of 500 million euros (571 million US dollars) on Apple for prevented user -pointed appliances from cheaper options outside of its app store.
The commission, which is the executive branch of the EU, also sentenced a fine to Meta Platforms 200 million euros, because it forced Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing personalized or paying to avoid them.
The punishments were smaller than the successful fines of several billion euros that the Commission previously slapped on large technological companies in antitrust cases.
Apple and Meta must comply with decisions within 60 days or risk “unpertified periodic penalty payments”, said the Commission.
Decisions were to arrive in March, but the self-imposed deadline slipped in the midst of an increasing transatlantic trade war with US President Donald Trump, who complained of Brussels regulations on several occasions affecting US companies.
The penalties were the first issued under the EU digital market law, also known as DMA. It is a book of radical rules that is equivalent to a set of DOs and not to give consumers and businesses more choice and to prevent “guards” from large digital market technologies during turns.
The DMA seeks to guarantee that “citizens have total control over the moment and how their data is used online, and companies can communicate freely with their own customers,” said Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of the Commission for technological sovereignty, in a press release.
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“The decisions adopted today note that Apple and Meta have removed this free choice from their users and are required to modify their behavior,” said Virkkunen.
The two companies said they would call.
Apple accused the commission of “unjustly targeting” the iPhone manufacturer and said that it “continues to move the goal posts” despite the business efforts to comply with the rules.
Meta World Affairs Director Joel Kaplan said in a statement that “the Commission was trying to handicap successful American companies while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate according to different standards”.
In a press briefing in Brussels, the commission spokesperson sought to write concerns about the fact that sanctions would ignite trade tensions.
“We are not careful who has a business. We are not careful to know where the company is located,” the spokesman for the commission, Thomas Regnier, told journalists. “We are totally agnostic on this front.”
“And be it a Chinese company, be an American company, or whether it is a European company, you will have to respect the rules of the European Union.”
In the case of the APP Store, the commission had accused the iPhone manufacturer of imposing unfair rules preventing the developers of applications from freely directing consumers to other channels.
Among the provisions of the DMA are requirements to allow developers to inform customers of cheaper purchase options and direct them to these offers.
The Commission said it had ordered Apple to remove the technical and commercial restrictions that prevent developers from directing users to other channels and ending “non -accomplice” driving.
Apple said that he had “spent hundreds of thousands of engineering and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, which our users have requested.”
“Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts at each stage,” said the company.
The EU Meta survey focused on the company’s strategy to comply with the strict rules of privacy of European data by giving users the possibility of paying the versions without advertising of Facebook and Instagram.
Users could pay at least 10 euros (US $ 11.40) per month to avoid being targeted by announcements according to their personal data. The American technology giant has deployed the option after the head of the European Union court ruled that the meta must first obtain consent before disseminating users.
The regulators have challenged the META model, saying that this does not allow users to exercise their right of “free consent” to allow their personal data from its various services, which also include Facebook Marketplace, Whatsapp and Messenger, to be combined for personalized announcements.
Meta deployed a third option in November by giving Facebook and Instagram users in Europe the choice to see fewer personalized ads if they do not want to pay for an advertising subscription. The Commission said it “currently assesses” this option and continues to hold conferences with Meta, and asked the company to provide evidence of the impact of the new option.
“It is not only a fine; the commission forces us to change our business model effectively imposes a price of several billion dollars on Meta while forcing us to offer a lower service,” said Kaplan. “And by unfairly restoring personalized advertising, the European Commission also harms European companies and economies.”
The EU has already sanctioned Apple under the DMA, but it did not involve a fine. The block took measures earlier this year to force the company to open its iPhone and iPad operating systems by describing the steps it takes to better work with competing technologies.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press