Under the EU digital markets law, Apple is required to allow developers to freely inform customers of alternative offers outside its app store.
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The European Union has a fine on Wednesday Apple And Meta Hundreds of millions of euros each for breaking the laws on digital competition from the block.
The European Commission, which is the EU executive body, said it had a fine of Apple ($ 571 million) and Meta 200 million euros ($ 228.4 million) for violations of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The officials said that Apple had not complied with the so-called “anti-stages” obligations under the DMA. Under the EU technological law, Apple must allow developers to freely inform customers of alternative offers outside its app store.
The technology giant has been ordered by the EU to remove technical and commercial restrictions on management and refrain from perpetuating its conduct not in accordance with the future.
Apple said in a statement that he planned to appeal to the EU fine while continuing his discussions with the Commission.
“Today’s announcements are still another example of the European Commission unjustly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the confidentiality and safety of our users, bad for products and forcing us to give our technology for free,” said Apple.
“We have spent hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering and made dozens of changes to respect this law, which our users have requested. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move objective positions at each stage,” added the company.
For Meta, the EU Commission noted that the social media group illegally obliged users to consent to share their data with the company or pay for service without advertising. It was in response to the introduction by META of a paid subscription level for Facebook and Instagram in November 2023.
Joel Kaplan, Meta World Affairs Director, said in a statement that the Commission “tried to handicap successful American companies while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate according to different standards”.
“This is not only a fine; the commission forces us to change our business model effectively requires a price of several billion dollars on meta while forcing us to offer a lower service. And by unfairly restoring personalized advertising, the European Commission also injures companies and European economies,” said Kaplan.
The EU said that its fine for Meta has taken into account the measures that the technology giant has taken to comply with its rules via a new version of its free personalized advertising service that uses fewer personal data to display advertising.
“The Commission is currently as -valued this new option and continues its dialogue with Meta, asking the company to provide evidence of the impact that this new advertising model has in practice,” the regulators said.
The antitrust decision risks potential reprisals by US President Donald Trump, who has not hidden his dissatisfaction with the EU regulations on the digital giants of America.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration imposed so -called “reciprocal” prices of 20% on EU products entering the United States, it then abandoned new rate rates on dozens of business partners – including the EU – to 10% for a limited period for trade negotiations.
Reciprocal prices came after Trump published a directive Threatening to impose prices on Europe to combat what he called “the extortion abroad” of American technological companies thanks to taxes, fines, practices and policies of digital services.
