MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

EC heavy fines on Apple and Meta for breach of Digital Market obligations

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 personal data

US tech giants Apple and Meta were fined €500 million ($572 million) and €200 million respectively. by the European Commission for breach of the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) obligations

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 personal data, another stipulation of the DMA.

But 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.

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 a less personalized but equivalent version of the platforms, and “did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

The Commission said that the fine on Meta concerned only the time 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 ads model allegedly using less personal data. The 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.

However Antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera said, however, in a statement that the fines “send a strong and clear message,” describing the action taken by the bloc as “firm but balanced.” 

Thomas Regnier, European Commission spokesperson, also denied that the fines targeted any particular country. “We don't care who owns the company. We don't care where the company is located,” he said.