The European Commission yesterday found tech giants Apple and Meta in breach of obligations under the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), fining the two US companies €500 million ($572 million) and €200 million respectively.
Apple was found to have breached its "anti-steering" obligation under the DMA, while Meta was considered not to have given consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their data, another stipulation of the DMA.
However, the EU also closed an investigation of Apple over its user choice obligations after the tech giant complied with the DMA by making it easy to select a default browser and for users to remove pre-installed apps such as Safari.
Apple was fined after the Commission concluded that the company prevented developers from steering customers outside its App Store to allow them to access cheaper deals.
The fine was imposed on Meta over its "pay for privacy" system, which means users have to pay to avoid data collection or agree to share their data with Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.
The Commission concluded that Meta did not provide Facebook and Instagram users with a less personalised but equivalent version of the platforms, and "did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their data."
The Commission said that the fine on Meta concerned only the period during which EU end users were solely offered the "consent or pay" option, from March 2024 to November 2024. That is when Meta introduced a new ad model allegedly using less personal data.
That model is currently under scrutiny by the EU.
Both companies have issued complaints about the penalties, the first under the DMA, which came into effect last year.
Apple said in a statement that it would appeal the fine.
"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," it said. —DWNEWS
