The European Union is set to impose Mark Zuckerberg's meta with a fine that is fined for allegedly violating strict antitrust rules. The post set the possibility of a showdown with President Trump comparing EU penalties with “overseas postponement.”
The European Commission, the EU's antitrust watchdog, is expected to conclude that META is not compliant with digital market laws.
The groundbreaking law came into effect in 2023 and applies strict competition rules for meta and six other companies. You are considered an Internet gatekeeper.
The fines are expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially exceed $1 billion, sources said.
The EU investigation into Facebook and Instagram's parent company is expected to close as early as this week, with the Commission's announcement of enforcement action soon following, the insider added.
EU officials are also expected to hit the meta with a “cancellation” notification, and sources say they will notify the company what needs to be changed to reach compliance.
Meta and representatives of the European Commission did not immediately return requests for comment.
Apple is also on the EU crosshair, and fines against iPhone makers could be announced this week or next week, sources said.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported Apple and Meta They could face a “subtle fine” for their DMA violations. EU anti-trust chief Teresalivera previously said decisions on enforcement actions by the two companies will arrive in March.
Apart from the meta, companies considered “gatekeepers” under the DMA include Google's Parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, Tiktok Parent Bytedance and Microsoft. EU regulators and other supporters say the law prevents the tech giant from crushing small rivals through anti-competitive action.
The law places large tech companies on fines up to 10% of their global revenue. Fines can rise to up to 20% of global revenue due to repeated crimes.
Last July, the EU issued a reserve fee accusing Meta of violating the DMA by forcing customers to a restrictive “salary or consent” model of Instagram and Facebook ads.
Authorities focused on the deployment of Meta's subscription services in 2023, allowing users to agree to Meta by making an ad-free experience on the app worth $14 a month or using personal data for targeted ads.
“This binary choice forces users to agree to their data combinations and fails to provide a personalized but comparable version of meta's social network,” the Commission said in a statement at the time.
in Public Compliance Report Publication earlier this month, Meta complained that despite efforts to comply with DMA rules, “we continue to receive additional demands beyond what is written in the law.”
In June 2024, Apple became the first company to be accused of a DMA violation that allegedly prevented rival app developers from guiding their customers to services other than the app store. In November, Apple reported that it was likely to be fined.
The EU took further action last week. Apple warned that the iPhone operating system needs to be opened to app developers. He also told Google Parent Alphabet that he could face fines for dealing with his own internal services “more positive” than his rivals in search results.
Aside from eliciting sharp criticism from big technology, the law has increasingly attracted Trump's rage. Trump accused Europe of ripping it out of the United States and vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs to level the playing field.
Last month, Trump issued a memo that his administration would “consider correspondence actions such as Digital Services Tax (DST), fines, practices, and tariffs to combat policies that foreign governments place on American businesses.”
“President Trump will not allow foreign governments to properly set American tax bases for their own interests,” the White House said at the time.
Separately, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has called for a briefing from EU officials on how BLOC plans to implement digital market laws. Jordan noted that six of the seven “gatekeepers” covered by the law are owned by Americans.
“These severe fines appear to have two goals: forcing businesses to follow European standards around the world, and as a European tax on American businesses,” Jordan said in the letter.
Zuckerberg, who has been hugging Trump since his election victory, says the EU fines targeting large tech companies are “almost like tariffs” and “a kind of EU-wide policy on how to deal with American technology.”
When he appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in January, Zuckerberg argued that Trump should fight back against the fine.
“I think it's a strategic advantage for the US that we have a lot of the most powerful companies in the world, and I think it should be part of our future US strategy to protect it,” Zuckerberg said.
The EU and Meta are engaged in beef that last longer than data privacy, including a record fine in 2023 for improperly transferring European users' data to the US.
