On Wednesday 23 April, the European Commission decided to impose two fines – the first of €500 million on Apple and the second of €200 million on Meta – for infringing the DMA Regulation governing digital services in the European Union in their capacity as gatekeepers.
Despite the unprecedented nature of these decisions and their political impact, at a time when the Commission is trying to avoid a trade confrontation with the United States, the two Vice-Presidents of the EU institution responsible, Teresa Ribera, in charge of Competition, and Henna Virkkunen, in charge of Digital Services, did not defend them to the press, officially because they were travelling abroad.
Concluding more than a year of preliminary investigations (see EUROPE 13378/8), these decisions by the College of European Commissioners are based on the application of European rules and follow a legal investigation. “This has nothing to do with trade negotiations”, explained Arianna Podesta, the Commission’s deputy spokeswoman, pointing out that Mrs Ribera and Mrs Virkkunen were travelling to Mexico and Germany respectively.
Apple. On Wednesday, the Commission announced three decisions concerning Apple.
Firstly, it concluded that the American giant was limiting the possibility for application developers to promote other offers free of charge on its platform and to direct their customers towards these offers outside the App Store (‘steering rules’) (see EUROPE 13438/15).
According to the Commission, this means that consumers cannot take full advantage of alternative, cheaper offers. And despite a few minor adjustments, Apple has not demonstrated that these restrictions are objectively necessary and proportionate.
It has therefore been fined €500 million.
Secondly, the EU institution has issued a preliminary opinion to the effect that Apple’s contractual conditions for the distribution of alternative applications infringe the DMA Regulation. According to the Commission, developers who wish to use other distribution channels for apps on iOS are discouraged from doing so. This practice forces them to opt for commercial terms that include a fee of €0.50 per application installed after one million downloads (‘Apple’s core technology fee’). In addition, the gatekeeper makes the installation of applications excessively restrictive when end users use alternative channels.
As part of this specific investigation, Apple can now access the Commission’s investigation file and defend itself.
Finally, following what it describes as a “constructive” dialogue with Apple, the Commission has decided to close the investigation into Apple’s freedom of choice for users. They can now easily uninstall pre-installed applications such as Safari, change the default settings of applications that manage phone calls, messaging or translation on iPhones, and choose their default Internet browser.
Meta. Regarding Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, the fine of €200 million imposed for infringement of the ‘DMA’ Regulation concerns the ‘pay or consent’ system, under which users either accept the processing of their personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising, or pay a subscription to avoid this advertising (see EUROPE 13378/8).
According to the Commission, this model does not really offer consumers the possibility of benefiting from an equivalent service that makes less use of their personal data. And “less than 1% of users” have decided to pay to avoid targeted advertising, noted a senior European official.
However, the EU institution is still analysing a new free option, offered by Meta since November 2024 (see EUROPE 13523/10), which extracts less personal data from users. As this analysis is ongoing, the decision to grant the fine does not take this third function into account. However, compared with the fine imposed on Apple, this new option reduces the duration of the infringement of the ‘DMA’ Regulation and, therefore, the amount of the fine imposed.
In addition, following a detailed evaluation and monitoring, the Commission has re-examined the designation of Facebook Marketplace operated by Meta and decided that this service should no longer be designated as a gatekeeper under the DMA Regulation. In particular, it found that Facebook Marketplace had fewer than 10,000 business users in 2024, below the relevant regulatory threshold.
With regard to the fines imposed, another European official indicated that the parameters to be taken into account were “the duration of the infringement, its seriousness and its recurrent nature”. Asked about the sums involved, which seem low compared to the possibility of imposing fines of up to the equivalent of 10% of a digital platform’s global revenue in the previous financial year, the official pointed out that this threshold was only taken into account at the end of the procedure to ensure that the amount imposed was lower.
60-day deadline. Apple and Meta now have 60 days to continue discussions with the Commission and comply with EU rules. Until then, the two companies will have to pay the fine or block the sum in separate accounts. They may also challenge the decision before the General Court of the EU.
After this deadline, if compliance is not achieved, the EU institution could decide to impose a penalty payment on the offending gatekeeper of up to 5% of its global daily revenue for the previous financial year. But taking this step is not automatic.
Reacting to the Commission’s decisions, Apple argued that the EU was penalising US companies while allowing their Chinese and European competitors to operate under different rules. Meta criticised Europe’s desire to force it to change its business model, comparing it to the imposition of a multi-billion dollar tariff.
“We don’t care who owns company, where company is located. We care about our customers, our businesses. Be it a Chinese, US or EU company, you will have to play by the rules in the EU”, said Thomas Régnier, Commission spokesman responsible for tech sovereignty.
At the European Parliament, the Chair of the Committee on the Internal Market, Anna Cavazzini, said that the Commission’s decisions were “in no way the start of a ‘technology war’ in response to Trump’s erratic tariff policy”, but “rather the consistent implementation of existing European legislation”, in a statement. Rapporteur on the DMA Regulation, Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Renew Europe, French) welcomed the fact that “Europe is no longer turning a blind eye to the digital giants”. “The message is clear: play by the rules or pay the price. I would have liked it to have hit earlier and harder, but at least we’re on course”, she added, urging the Commission to “keep up the pressure”.
See the decisions taken by the European Commission under the ‘DMA’ Regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/gi5 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)