London – Wachenhunde of the European Union Ecple and meta fines Hundreds of million euros on Wednesday when they enforced the digital competitive rules of the 27-nation block. The European Commission imposed a fine of 500 million euros (571 million US dollars) to prevent app manufacturers from referring users outside the App Store to cheaper options. The Commission, the EU’s Executive ARM, has also sentenced a fine of Meta platforms of 200 million euros (228 million US dollars), as it is forced to choose Facebook and Instagram users to choose between ads or payment.
The punishments were smaller than the blockbuster-multi-euro money losses, which the Commission previously beaten in antitrust cases against large technology companies.
Apple and Meta must adhere to the decisions within 60 days or not specified “regular fines,” said the Commission.
The decisions were expected to come in March, but the officials apparently held back under an escalating transatlantic trade war with President Trump, who repeatedly complained about Brussels regulations that affect American companies.
The punishments were granted according to the EU Digital Markets Act, also known as DMA. It is a comprehensive rule book that corresponds to a number of DOS and DONGEN to give consumers and companies more selection and to prevent Big Tech “Gatekeeper” from taking digital markets in curves.
The DMA tries to ensure that “citizens have full control over when and how their data will be used online, and companies can communicate freely with their own customers,” says an explanation, Henna Virkkuns, Executive Vice President of Tech Souderänität of the Commission for Technical Sovereignty.
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“The decisions made today find that both Apple and Meta have taken this free choice from their users and are obliged to change their behavior,” said Virkkuns.
Both companies stated that they would appeal.
“The European Commission is trying to operate successful American companies and at the same time to operate Chinese and European companies according to various standards,” said Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer from Meta, in a statement by the US tech giant. “It is not just a fine. The Commission forces us to change our business model, a billion -dollar tariff for meta while we have to offer an inferior service. The unfair restriction of personalized advertising also harms the European Commission on European companies and economies.”
Apple accused the Commission of “unfair” the iPhone manufacturer and said that despite the company’s efforts to comply with the rules, it continues to “move the goal posts”.
In the App Store case, the Commission had accused the iPhone manufacturer of imposing unfair rules in order to prevent app developers from steering consumers freely to other channels.
DMA’s provisions include requirements in order to be able to inform developers about cheaper shopping options and to direct them to these offers.
The Commission said that it instructed Apple to remove technical and commercial restrictions that are prevented from preventing developers on other channels and ending “non -compliant” behaviors.
Apple said “hundreds of thousands of engineering lessons and made dozens of changes to comply with this law that none of which asked our users”.
“Despite countless sessions, the Commission moves the targets on every step of the way,” said the company.
Apple has also exposed itself in the USA in front of a wide cartel lawsuit in which the Ministry of Justice claims That the California company was illegally concerned with contrary to competitive behavior to build a “moat to build up its smartphone monopoly” and maximize its profits at the expense of consumers. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs.
The EU META investigation focused on the company’s strategy of complying with strict European data protection rules by giving users the opportunity to pay for versions of Facebook and Instagram for ad-free-free.
Users could pay at least 10 euros ($ 11) per month so as not to align advertisements based on their personal data. The US Tech -Riese has introduced the option after the Supreme Court of the European Union Meta first had to obtain the users in a decision that threatened its business model based on the online interests of the individual users and digital activities.
With the META model, the supervisory authorities have questioned, and it does not allow users to allow their right to “freely agree” to their personal data from their various services, including Facebook marketplace, WhatsApp and messenger, for personalized advertisements.
Meta organized a third option in November in which Facebook and Instagram users in Europe have the opportunity to see fewer personalized ads if they do not want to pay for an advertising subscription. The Commission said that it “currently rated” this option and continues to perform talks with META and asked the company to show the effects of the new option.
The European Commission also has it Google struck several times with antitrust penaltiesIncluding a fine of 5 billion US dollars in 2018 due to the abuse of the market dominance of the search engine of the Android mobile phone operating system.
