Apple, Google and Meta are facing violations investigations related to a sweeping new European law aimed at cracking down on anti-competitive business practices, EU regulators said on Monday.
The European Union’s antitrust agency, the European Commission, said its investigation looked into “Alphabet’s rules for Google Play operations and self-prioritization in Google search, Apple’s rules for the App Store and Safari selection screen, and Meta’s” He said he would focus on that. Payment or consent model. ”
“We suspect that the solutions proposed by the three companies are not fully compliant with the DMA,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. “We will now investigate companies’ compliance with the DMA to ensure an open and competitive digital market in Europe.”
The study will be the first major test of European digital market law. The law targets six Big Tech giants determined to be the “gatekeepers” of the internet: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft. Both companies had until March 7 to comply with the rules.
If Big Tech companies are found to have breached digital markets laws, EU regulators can impose fines of up to 10% of global revenue for first-time violations and up to 20% for repeat violations. There is sex. It can also order changes to business models “in the event of systematic infringement.”
The European Commission will also seek information on whether Amazon is prioritizing its own products in its online store, and on Apple’s new compliance plans for the DMA, which include charging new “core technology fees” to app developers. He said he was collecting. That was “contrary to the purpose” of the law.
The agency has not yet launched a formal investigation into these issues.
Authorities ordered Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta to preserve documents related to the investigation.
The investigation into Apple follows an antitrust lawsuit filed last week by the U.S. Department of Justice, accusing the company of taking illegal steps to secure its dominance of the iPhone.
Apple shares fell more than 1% in early trading. Alphabet and Meta each fell less than 1%.
EU antitrust authorities said they are investigating whether Google is displaying its own services, such as Google Shopping and Google Flights, in search results without permission.
Google and Apple, which operate the Play Store and App Store respectively, have fully complied with EU rules requiring them to allow third-party developers to “drive” customers to cheaper products outside their own app stores. An investigation is being conducted to determine whether there is.
“We will continue to defend our approach in the coming months,” Oliver Bethel, Google’s director of competition, said in a statement.
Apple is also being investigated for the extent to which it complies with DMA rules, which require companies to allow customers to easily uninstall their apps or switch their preferred search engine to other “default” settings. There is.
Apple said it complies with the DMA and “continues to engage constructively with the European Commission as it conducts its investigation.”
The European Commission has already fined Apple nearly $2 billion earlier this month for “abuse of a dominant position” in the music streaming industry. Apple has vowed to appeal the fine.
In Meta’s case, the antitrust watchdog is investigating the company’s widely criticized introduction of an ad-free subscription plan for Facebook and Instagram users in Europe. Mehta argued the plan was necessary to comply with European data privacy laws.
“Subscriptions as an alternative to advertising is an established business model in many industries, and we designed ad-free subscriptions to address several overlapping regulatory obligations, including the DMA.” a spokesperson said in a statement.
