The European Commission has announced the opening of several investigations targeting the compliance of Apple, Meta and Google with digital markets regulation (DMA). In the event of non-compliance with the law, they are exposed to a particularly hefty fine…
In force since March 7, the DMA imposes new competition rules on platforms considered to be access controllers, that is to say constituting obligatory passages to go to the Internet. The services of six companies are affected: Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and ByteDance. Within the framework of the legislation, they are notably forced to open their platforms to competition and make them interoperable. Each of them presented new measures to comply with the rules, but clearly, the European executive power is not really convinced.
Regulators doubtful about the compliance policies of American giants
These are the first investigations opened under the DMA. The European Commission will seek to determine whether the services of Google, Meta and Apple really comply with the law. More specifically, the organization will look into the policies of Google and Apple in their respective application stores, in order to find out if developers can really offer alternative download methods.
Concerning Apple, regulators will also be interested in its new pricing policy, strongly criticized by developers, as well as the browser choice screen deployed on iOS. Meta’s ad-free subscription is also being targeted, with the Commission concerned that “ the imposed binary choice » by the social media giant « does not offer a real alternative in case users do not give consent “. Likewise, Meta has six months to make Messenger interoperable with other messaging services.
Investigators will also scrutinize Google’s practices on its search engine, in order to establish possible favoritism by the firm for its products to the detriment of those of its rivals. “ We are not convinced that the solutions proposed by Alphabet, Apple and Meta meet their obligations towards a fairer and more open digital space for European citizens and businesses », Warns the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton.
Very heavy potential fines
The European Union (EU) aims to establish the DMA as pioneering legislation on a global scale. So she wants to strike a big blow. The Commission also announces a search for additional information concerning Amazon, which potentially favors its own products on its marketplace.
Regulators are giving themselves twelve months to complete their investigation. They will then indicate to companies the possible measures to adopt to comply with the law. In the event of non-compliance, the Commission is able to impose on each company a fine of up to 10% of its annual global turnover, or even 20% in the event of ” repeated offense “.
Sources: European Commission, The Verge
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