The European Union has expressed suspicion against Apple, Google and Meta over their compliance with the Digital Markets Act, forcing it to launch five investigations against the tech giants spanning over 12 months.
While Apple and Google are checked for their new app store rules, Meta is being investigated about it’s newly launched “pay or consent model”, which the critics called infeasible. If found guilty, these companies could be fined 10% of their annual global revenue, as per DMA.
Keeping a Check on the Gatekeepers
Enacting the Digital Markets Act, the EU called companies like Apple, Meta, and Google the gatekeepers of specific spaces – and forced them to open up for a flexible ecosystem. While they all obeyed to comply, most tactically dodged the new act with their new rules.
For example, Apple did allow app developers to publish their apps outside the App Store, but levied a fee that was infeasible to them. Google, on the other hand, is criticised for prioritizing its services in Search, similar to Amazon, accused of self-preferencing it’s products on it’s store.
While Meta is asked to stop the tracking of European users, the company introduced a “pay or consent” model, asking users to pay €9.99 a month to opt out of tracking. As all these measures are deemed unlawful, the European Union has announced five non-compliance investigations into Apple, Google and Meta on Monday.
Set to conclude in 12 months, the investigation will check these tech giants on various counts, as discussed above, and suggest measures to bring them into compliance. Also, the EU will penalize them heavily under the DMA – which could be up to 10% of the company’s annual global revenue or even 20% in cases of “repeated infringement”.
The announcement of this investigation follows a series of complaints raised by critics, users and rivals that Apple and Meta aren’t complying with the DMA properly. Epic Games and Spotify called out the new rules crafted by Apple will dissuade developers from publishing apps outside the App Store, while Meta’s subscription for the no-ad tier costs €9.99 a month, which is costly.
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