Under a new groundbreaking digital law, which could lead to huge fines, the European Union on Monday hit Apple, Google parent Alphabet and Meta with the first-ever probes.
According to the European Commission, it “suspects that the measures put in place by these gatekeepers fall short of effective compliance of their obligations under the DMA”, the EU’s antitrust regulator said, referring to the Digital Markets Act.
Apple and Google’s app store rules will be targeted in this round of probes under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, how Google search results might unfairly preference its own services and how Apple may make it difficult for users to choose alternatives to its Safari browser.
Also, the commission warned about further scrutiny on Apple’s new fee structure for stand-in app stores and Amazon.com Inc.’s ranking practices on its marketplace.
For Apple, the EU probe comes as a one-two punch with an ongoing antitrust probe in the US, where the Justice Department and 16 attorneys general sued the firm last week, accusing the iPhone maker of violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its popular devices. The EU also recently hit Apple with a €1.8 billion ($2 billion) fine for blocking music streaming apps from informing users of cheaper deals.
The Commission said that it is “concerned that Apple’s measures, including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.”
This points to Apple having to break open its previously closed iPhone app ecosystem and allow users to download software from other online stores and from the web.
“The Commission is concerned that the binary choice imposed by Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers,” says Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner.
Speaking further, he said, there should be “free alternative options” offered by Meta for its services that are “less personalized.”