Get set for the next tangling of antlers between the US and the European Union. Why? Because the European Commission has found Apple and Meta in breach of its Digital Markets Act, and has fined the tech giants €500m and €200m respectively.
Apple was fined for its ‘steering terms’ over how developers could (or, rather, couldn’t) tell customers about alternative offers outside the App Store. Think Spotify subscriptions. Meta, meanwhile, has been fined for what the EC describes as its “consent or pay” model where “EU users of Facebook and Instagram had a choice between consenting to personal data combination for personalised advertising or paying a monthly subscription for an ad-free service”.
Note, the fines are actually relatively small, considering they could have been up to 10% of each company’s annual global revenues ($165bn for Meta and $391bn for Apple last year).
Both companies have hit out at the ruling, including a punchy statement from Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan. “The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.”
And yes, that IS a bat-signal being sent out to US president Donald Trump. One that was received loud and clear. “This novel form of economic extortion will not be tolerated by the United States,” a White House spokesperson told Reuters. This could hint at a ramping up of tariffs on the EU and other measures penalising European companies.
