OR Apple and the Meta They were affected by fines of the European Commission (Commission) totaling € 700 million ($ 798 million) to violate the new strict antitrust rules for large technology companies after warnings of harsh retaliation by US President Donald.
Fines of 500 and 200m euros was imposed on Wednesday (23/4) by the European Commission on Apple and META respectively for violating the new EU digital rules. Commission regulators imposed fines – fines – fines – fines – fines – EUR 500 million against Apple and 200 million euros against META – In the context of the law on digital markets, which includes a list of “DOS” and “Dons” for Silicon Valley giants.
The penalties are much lower than previous sanctions under the traditional EU competition legislation and are likely to be seen as an attempt to avoid the further challenge of Trump, who recently set a series of tariffs in world economies. He has specifically mentioned the EU technological regulations as the type of non -tariff trade barrier intended to target his so -called mutual duties.
The Commission said that Apple did not allow developers to log in by the App Store to make sales out of the company’s market. Meta’s business model for advertising services on Instagram and Facebook also fell victim to the technological law, which provides regulatory authorities of up to 10% of a company’s worldwide revenue.
“Apple and Meta have fallen out,” said EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera. “All EU operating companies must follow our laws and respect European values».
The fines are the first in the context of DMA. Both companies must comply with EU decision within 60 days, otherwise face the risk further economic sanctions. Apple has also been warned that its new remuneration structure for application developers is not in accordance with the EU rules manual for Big Tech.
Apple reacted strongly to EU penaltyaccusing the Block regulators (EU) of discrimination against the company and forcing it to give its technology for free. The company based in Koupertino, California, said it would appeal against the fine in the EU courts.
Just last year, the company was hit by a fine of € 1.8 billion from the EU to exclude its competitors for streaming music on the iPhone. Meta also counterattacked, saying that the EU “is trying to reduce successful US companies, while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate with different standards”.
However, Apple has seen EU observatories close a survey on online browsers as it has renovated how it offers users more options on their iPhones. EU regulators also withdrawn from their decision to target Facebook Marketplace under the DMA.
Meta was hit by a fine of EUR 798 million for alleged abuses in that service last year under ordinary antitrust legislation. In recent years, the EU has imposed expensive sanctions on businesses, including more than $ 8 billion against Alphabet’s Google and a separate mandate to Apple to pay Ireland with retrospective taxes of 13 billion euros.
In the context of its rules to abuse a dominant position, it has also imposed changes on Amazon’s Platinum Platform and Apple’s Tap-and-Go Chip, while also exploring Microsoft Teams video conference software.