Fines of the EU Apple and combined Meta € 700 million

The European Union has delivered the Apple technological giants and significant fines of 500 million euros and € 200 million respectively, for violating the new rules of the block that regulates digital markets.

Apple penalized it in power for inserting unfair restrictions on the app developers who use his App Store.

Facebook and the owner of Instagram Meta were fined for his “consent or payment” model of users’ charge “a monthly subscription, if they refused to allow the company to use their personal data to better direct ads.

The fines were issued following investigations launched on suspected violations of the EU digital markets act, which tries to regulate the power of great technological players. The regulations entered into force in 2023 and have given obligations for technological companies that hold dominant market positions, to allow fair competition.

The fines follow two antitrust investigations conducted by the European Commission, the EU manager who applies the technological regulations of the Union.

“I discovered that the rugby player I see is at four times, and I’m more attracted to him than ever”

“I discovered that the rugby player I see is at four times, and I’m more attracted to him than ever”

Financial sanctions on US multinationals will probably bring the commercial dispute between the United States and the European Union, given that the President of the United States Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the rigid regulations on EU technological companies as unjust.

The Commission insisted that its digital rules are not in the negotiation phase as part of any future interviews to suspend the commercial rates that Trump has imposed on the EU states.

The EU executive established that Apple was preventing the app developers from driving customers to cheaper subscription offers available outside its App Store system.

“Consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and economic offers since Apple prevents the app developers from directly informing consumers of these offers,” he said.

He fined Apple € 500 million and ordered the company to raise restrictions on the app developers that list their products on his App Store.

The Giant of Meta Technology was fined for 200 million euros compared to the changes introduced at the end of 2023, which required users to pay a monthly subscription fee, if they refused to allow their data to be used by the company to adapt in-app advertisements.

The Commission established that this did not give Facebook or Instagram users sufficient to choose a service that used less than their personal data or allowed people to freely consent to how their data were used. The EU investigation found that only a small part of the user user opted to pay the monthly fee.

The fines will be likely to be appealed to the EU courts from both Apple and Meta.

“We will defend our case in court if we get there,” said a spokesman for the commission on Wednesday.

Fines are the first issued by the Commission based on its new technological competition rules.

While the investigations ended some time ago, a large internal work were carried out to stress the results, based on the expectations that the fines would have been contested in court.

“This has nothing to do with rates, this is an independent decision,” said a source of the commission.

Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer of Meta, said that the EU organism “tried to manage successful American companies, allowing at the same time to Chinese and European companies to operate according to different standards”.

Kaplan has compared the management of the commission that alters its business model to a “multimiliardari rate” has put in company.

In a statement, Apple confirmed that he would appeal to the fine. The commission was “unjustly targeted” the iPhone producer, in the decision that claimed that it was bad for privacy and would forced him to “give away our technology for free”.

“We spent hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering and made dozens of changes to conform to this law, none of which our users asked,” he said.

The commission’s sentence, which will allow people to access a cheaper and wider content on the Apple and Meta platforms, was welcomed by the largest umbrella group that represents the interests of consumers in the EU.

“Today’s decisions are important to show great technology that if they choose to operate in the single EU market they have to play according to our rules,” said Agustín Reyna, general manager of the organization of European consumers Beuc.

He underlined that both companies had been granted “broad time to conform to the law on digital markets, but instead delayed compliance and tried to distort the rules to their advantage. Consumers deserve better choices and companies need more equitable market conditions in digital markets, therefore the Commission must apply the law”.

Beuc described the DMA as “a turning point in terms of opening the digital markets to greater competition”. Rayna invited the commission to make her respect effectively “so that gatekeeper respect all its provisions and consumers can collect the benefits of a more and better choice in digital services”.

Separately on Wednesday, the companies of the French media, including TF1, France TV and BFM TV, have filed a cause against the destination on what they say are illegal commercial practices, have affirmed their law firms.

The case was presented before the Court of the Commercial Court of Paris by a group of 67 media companies representing 200 publications. They argue that the domain of the Meta Market in the digital advertising sector was mainly based on illegal practices, including the collection of personal data on large scale and its use for targeted advertising.

Meta did not immediately respond to a comment request. – [with Rduters’ report]

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