April 23 (UPI) — The European Commission Wednesday fined Apple and Meta $570.85 million and $228.34 million, respectively for breach of the EU Digital Markets Act.
The actions against the tech giants are the first non-compliance decisions adopted under the DMA.
The Commission found that Apple violated an anti-steering requirement under that law while Meta “breached the DMA obligation to give consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data.”
The DMA requires Apple to offer alternatives beyond the App Store that would let app developers inform customers of alternatives, steer them to those apps and let customers make purchases.
“Due to a number of restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels outside the App Store,” the commission said in a statement. “Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers.”
Apple was ordered to remove its technical and commercial restrictions on steering. The company was also ordered to stop the practices found to violate the DMA.
Apple said in a statement it plans to appeal the fines.
“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,” Apple said.
Meta’s use of a “Consent or Pay” advertising model was found to violate the DMA. Under that model, the commission said, Meta gave Facebook and Instagram users a choice of either consenting to use of personal data for advertising or paying a monthly fee for ad-free service.
The commission said that the policy violates the DMA because it doesn’t give consumers “the required specific choice to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the ‘personalized ads’ service.”
According to the commission, Meta was also not allowing users “to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”
“This isn’t just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service,” said Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer.
The commission fines against Apple and Meta come amid the tariffs trade war ignited by President Donald Trump’s use of the tariffs power granted to Congress under the U.S. Constitution.
The tariffs are being personally imposed by Trump under emergency powers the White House claims under the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act.
California is suing to block the tariffs.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement, “Donald Trump does not have the authority to unilaterally impose the largest tax hike of our lifetime with his destructive tariffs. We’re taking him to court.”
As tech companies try to cope with the tariffs, Google has also lost two antitrust cases in a row as courts in the United States have found it to hold illegal advertising monopolies in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Google accuses the government of wanting to dictate how it does business and claimed legitimate reasons for the monopoly behavior courts have ruled to be illegal.
The EU’s enforcement action against Apple and Meta could trigger further tariff escalation from the Trump administration as the EU attempts to reach a tariffs agreement with the U.S.
