Watchdogs of the European Union Fine Apple And Meta Hundreds of millions of euros on Wednesday when they got up enforcement of the digital competition rules of the 27 countries.
The European Commission has imposed a fine of 500 million euros (US $ 571 million) on Apple to prevent App -Makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside the App Store.
The Commission, the EU Executive Arm, also fines Meta platforms 200 million euros because the Facebook and Instagram users forced to choose between personalized advertisements or pay to avoid them.
The penalties were smaller than the blockbuster Multibillion-Euro fines that the committee previously made at large technology companies in antitrust cases.
Apple and Meta must comply with decisions or not specifically “periodic fines within 60 days,” the committee said.
The decisions are expected to come in March, but the self-imposed deadline slipped in the midst of an escalating transatlantic trade war with US President Donald Trump, who repeatedly complained about instructions from Brussels that the American companies make.
The penalties were the first issued in the context of the EU’s Digital Markets Act, also known as the DMA. It is a radical rules book that comes down to a set of do’s and DONs that are designed to give consumers and companies more choice and to prevent Big -technical ‘gatekeepers’ digital markets in the bend.
The DMA tries to ensure that “citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and companies can freely communicate with their own customers,” said Henna Virkkunen, the executive vice -president of the technical sovereignty committee, in a statement.
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“The decisions adopted today find that both Apple and Meta have removed this free choice from their users and change their behavior,” said Virkkunen.
Both companies indicated that they would appeal.
Apple accused “unfairly focused” on the iPhone maker and said that it “continues to move the goal posts”, despite the efforts of the company to comply with the rules.
Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said in a statement that the “Commission is trying to handle successful American companies, while Chinese and European companies can operate under different standards.”
In a press conference in Brussels, spokespersons of the committee tried to tip the concern that the penalties would cause trading tensions.
“We don’t care who a company owns. We don’t care where the company is located,” spokesperson Thomas Regnier of the committee told reporters. “We are completely agnostic in that area.”
“And whether it is a Chinese company, is an American company, or whether it is a European company, you will have to play according to the rules in the European Union.”
In the App Store case, the committee had accused the iPhone maker of imposing unfair rules, so that App developers freely send consumers to other channels.
One of the provisions of the DMA is requirements to let developers inform customers about cheaper purchase options and to lead them to those offers.
The committee said that the Apple ordered to remove technical and commercial restrictions that prevented developers from sending users to other channels and put an end to “non -conforming” behavior.
Apple said it “spent hundreds of thousands of technical hours and made dozens of changes to meet this law that our users have not asked.”
“Despite countless meetings, the committee continues to move the goal posts at every step,” the company said.
The EU meta investigation was aimed at the company’s strategy to meet strict European data privacy rules by giving users the opportunity to pay for advertising-free versions of Facebook and Instagram.
Users can pay at least 10 euros (US $ 11.40) per month to prevent them from being the target of advertisements based on their personal information. The American tech giant has rolled out the option after the top court of the European Union had ruled that Meta should first get permission before they show advertisements to users.
Regulators have demonstrated the Meta model and said that users do not allow users to “give free permission” to allow their personal data from the various services, which also combines Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp and Messenger for personalized advertisements.
Meta rolled out a third option in November and gave Facebook and Instagram users in Europe the choice to see less personalized advertisements if they do not want to pay for an advertising-free subscription. The committee said that this option “assesses” and continues to hold discussions with Meta, and has asked the company to provide evidence of the impact of the new option.
“This is not just a fine; the committee that forces us to change our business model effectively imposes a rate of billions of dollars on meta, while we demand that we offer an inferior service,” said Kaplan. “And by reducing the unfair of personalized advertisements, the European Commission also damages European companies and economies.”
The EU has already punished Apple under the DMA, but it was not a fine. Earlier this year, the Blok took action to force the company to open its iPhone and iPad operating systems by sketching the steps it should take to work better with competing technologies.
& copy 2025 The Canadian Press
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