EU regulators fined Apple and dollar on Wednesday and fined hundreds of millions of euros as they strengthened the enforcement of digital competition rules for the group of 27 countries.
The European Commission fined €500 million ($571 million) for preventing app manufacturers from pointing to options outside their app stores to prevent users from pointing to cheaper options.
The commission, the EU executive, also fined the dollar platform 200 million euros as it forces Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing personalized ads or paying to avoid them.
These penalties are smaller than the fines from the large tech companies that the commission had slapped in anti-drug cars.
The committee said Apple and Meta must comply with these decisions within 60 days, otherwise there could be a risk of unspecified “periodic fines.”
The decisions are expected to take place in March, but the self-imposed deadline has slipped amid the escalating transatlantic trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about Brussels’ regulations affecting U.S. companies.
The fine is the first fine issued under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (also known as the DMA). This is a comprehensive rulebook, equivalent to a set of Do and Dots, designed to provide consumers and businesses with more options and prevent large-scale tech “gatekeepers” from turning around the digital market.
The DMA seeks to ensure that “citizens have full control over when and how data is used online and that businesses can communicate freely with their own customers,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of technical sovereignty, said in a statement.
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“The decision passed today found that both Apple and Meta took this free option from users and needed to change their behavior,” Virkkunen said.
Both companies said they would appeal.
Apple accused the committee of “unfairly targeting” iPhone manufacturers and said it “continues to move the door posts” despite the company’s efforts to comply with the rules.
“The committee is trying to disable U.S. operations while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate at different standards,” Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a statement.
At a Brussels press conference, a committee spokesman tried to ease concerns that penalties would spark trade tensions.
“We don't care who owns the company. We don't care where the company is located,” committee spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters. “We're totally unknowable in this regard.”
“It’s a Chinese company, it’s an American company, or a European company, and you’ll have to play according to EU rules.”
In the App Store case, the committee accused iPhone manufacturers of imposing unfair rules to prevent app developers from turning consumers freely to other channels.
In the DMA regulations, developers are required to inform customers of cheap purchase options and direct them to these offers.
The committee said it ordered Apple to remove technical and commercial restrictions to prevent developers from turning users to other channels and ending “non-compliant” behavior.
Apple said it has spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with the law, none of our users required it. ”
“Despite numerous meetings, the committee continues to move the goal posts at every step,” the company said.
The EU's META survey is centered on the company's strategy to comply with strict European data privacy rules, allowing users to choose to pay for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram.
Users can pay at least €10 per month ($11.40) to avoid targeting advertising based on their personal data. The U.S. tech giant introduced the option before the EU’s Supreme Court ruled that the meta-law ruled the meta-law, before it first gained consent, before it showed ads to users.
Regulators have questioned Meta's model, saying it does not allow users to exercise their “free consent” rights to allow personal data in its various services, including Facebook Marketplace, WhatsApp and Messenger, to merge into personalized advertising.
Meta launched a third option in November, offering European Facebook and Instagram users the option to choose fewer personalized ads if they don’t want to pay for free ad subscriptions. The committee said it was “currently evaluating” this option and continued to hold talks with Meta and asked the company to provide evidence of the impact of the new option.
“It’s more than a fine; the Commission forces us to change our business model, effectively imposing billions of dollars in tariffs on the meta-elements while requiring us to provide inferior services,” Kaplan said. “And, by unfairly limiting personalized advertising in the European Commission, it also harms European businesses and the economy.”
The EU has approved Apple under the DMA, but there is no fine involved. The group took action earlier this year to force the company to open up its iPhone and iPad operating systems by outlining the steps needed to work better with competitive technology.
& Copy 2025 Canadian Press
