EU fines Apple €500M and Meta €200M for breaking Europe’s digital rules

 

EU fines Apple €500M and Meta €200M for breaking Europe’s digital rules

 

The highly anticipated penalties are the first to be issued under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act.

 

April 23, 2025 11:45 am CET

By Jacob Parry

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-fines-apple-meta-breaking-europe-digital-markets-act-dma/

 

The European Commission issued the first fines under its Digital Markets Act on Wednesday, slapping tech giants Apple and Meta with penalties for breaching the EU’s new digital rulebook.

 

Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation’s rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its "pay or consent" advertising model, which requires that European Union users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram.

 

The DMA took effect in 2024 and sets rules for how tech companies should operate on the European market. The two fines are the result of yearlong investigations into the activities of the United States tech giants.

 

In addition to the fine, Apple has been issued with a cease-and-desist order requiring it to make further product changes by late June. If the firm fails to comply, the Commission can fine it for every additional day it is in breach of the law.

 

The Commission is currently assessing changes that Meta introduced late last year in order to comply with the regulation.

 

The procedural fines fall short of the two giant penalties issued by the EU executive under its antitrust laws last year: €1.8 billion to Apple for abusing its dominant position while distributing music streaming apps, and €797 million to Meta for pushing its classified ads service on social media users.

 

A senior EU official said that in determining the penalties announced Wednesday the Commission had been mindful that these are the first fines issued under the DMA and that, for Meta, the infringement stopped in November, only months after Brussels aired its concerns.

 

In total, the Commission adopted five DMA-related decisions on Wednesday. Along with the noncompliance decisions, both Meta and Apple received a sweetener.

 

The EU executive announced it has closed an investigation into Apple’s compliance with the DMA’s rules on browsers and default apps following changes that helped competitors like Mozilla gain a foothold on iOS devices.

 

It also lifted a decision that designated Facebook Marketplace as a regulated service, meaning that part of Meta's business no longer falls within the remit of the DMA.

 

Finally, the Commission opted to escalate its enforcement effort against Apple’s app store, issuing the iPhone-maker with a charge sheet concerning its dealings with alternative app marketplaces. These preliminary findings still need to be investigated further but could mean more DMA fines for Apple down the line.

 

In a press release accompanying the decision, EU Competition Commissioner Teresa Ribera said: “Apple and Meta have fallen short of compliance with the DMA by implementing measures that reinforce the dependence of business users and consumers on their platforms. As a result, we have taken firm but balanced enforcement action against both companies, based on clear and predictable rules.”

 

Apple spokesperson Emma Wilson said in a statement that the company intends to appeal the Commission’s decision while continuing discussions on compliance. The EU executive’s decisions are “yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple,” said Wilson. “Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way,” she said.

 

In a statement, Meta's Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said the decision effectively amounts to a “multi-billion-dollar tariff” that would also hurt European businesses and economies. “The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards,” he said.

 

The EU’s clampdown on Apple and Meta comes after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration sought to pull the bloc’s digital rulebook into its trade conflict with Europe, saying in February it would consider retaliatory measures in response to actions taken against U.S. tech companies.

 

The Commission signaled last week that it would not let the trade onslaught distract it from its law enforcement duties, with President Ursula von der Leyen telling POLITICO that the bloc’s digital rules must be enforced.

 

This story has been updated to add reactions from Apple, Meta and the European Commission