The Europeans are striving to find that fine line with U.S. high-tech giants where they can extort meaningful amounts of money,, but not so much that the giants up and leave. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
European Union regulators fined Apple €500 million ($570 million) and Meta €200 million ($230 million) for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA). These are the first non-compliance penalties against Silicon Valley tech under the DMA.
The European Commission announced that Apple breached its anti-steering obligation by restricting app developers from directing users to alternative payment offers outside the App Store. As a result, developers and consumers were denied access to cheaper, non-App Store options. Apple must now remove these restrictions and refrain from engaging in similar practices in the future.
“As part of today’s decision, the Commission has ordered Apple to remove the technical and commercial restrictions on steering and to refrain from perpetuating the non-compliant conduct in the future, which includes adopting conduct with an equivalent object or effect,” the Commission wrote in a statement.
The Commission noted that it has closed the investigation into Apple’s user choice obligations, thanks to proactive engagement by Apple on a compliance resolution.
Meta’s fines totaled €200 million for violating the DMA by forcing a “Consent or Pay” model on Facebook and Instagram users to choose between personalized ads (via data sharing) or a paid ad-free experience.
