The European Union (EU) announced that it has launched investigations into the world’s largest technology companies to examine anti-competitive practices. Meta, Apple and Google’s owner Alphabet are being scrutinized for possible violations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) introduced in 2022.
Apple, Meta, Google and more under scrutiny
If they have violated the rules, these companies could face fines as high as 10% of their annual turnover. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager and industry chief Thierry Breton announced the investigations on Monday. There are six companies with obligations under the DMA: Alphabet, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and ByteDance.
None of these companies are actually headquartered in Europe. Five are in the US and ByteDance is in Beijing. The companies were immediately placed under investigation after submitting their compliance reports just two weeks ago. These reports, designed to comply with the EU’s regulatory obligations, were carefully prepared by the companies.
The EU’s move comes three weeks after Apple was fined 1.8 billion euros by the EU for violating competition laws on music streaming. At the same time, the US filed a giant lawsuit last week accusing Apple of monopolizing the cell phone market.
An Apple spokesperson said the company would participate constructively in the investigation and that its plans comply with the Digital Markets Act. A Meta spokesperson said that the use of subscriptions to avoid advertising is a well-established business model in many industries.
The EU’s announcement said it would investigate five different acts of non-compliance, including whether Apple and Alphabet did not allow apps to freely communicate and contract with users, whether Apple did not give users enough choice, and whether it was unfair for Meta to ask people to pay to avoid having their data used for advertising.
It’s clear that the EU is determined to tackle anti-competitive practices. What do you think? Please don’t forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
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