On Wednesday, the European Union's anti-trust regulator issued new warnings to Apple and Google about potential violations of strict digital rules. This is a move that is likely to foster tensions between the EU and President Trump.
The European Commission's EU competitive watchdog told Google that it could face major fines to handle its own internal services “more favorable” than its rivals in search results, and to limit rival developers from moving users away from the “Play” Android App Store.
Apart from that, the committee warned Tim Cook's Apple that it must provide greater access to rival developers to iOS, the operating system used by iOS, in order to improve “interoperability” and comply with the law. Apple claims that doing so puts users' privacy at risk.
The companies are targeted under European digital market laws, which apply to seven companies deemed “gatekeepers” of the Internet: Google Parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, Tiktok Parent Bytedance, Meta, Microsoft. Companies can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue. This could amount to tens of millions of dollars.
“Let me be clear: our main focus is to create a culture of compliance with digital market law,” EU antitrust Chief Teresalivera said in a statement.
The EU's crackdown on US tech companies has emerged as a key aspect of the ongoing trade dispute with Trump, who threatened to impose major tariffs on EU members.
The post contacted the Trump administration for comment.
Trump, who compared the EU fines to “overseas fear tor,” issued a memo last month pointing out 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.
For now, only the committee's warnings against Google are accompanied by the threat of fines.
Still, the search giant denounces the latest EU action in a blog post, writing that it will “increase the risk of an even worse experience for Europeans.”
“DMA is designed to regulate large platforms like Google, Apple and Meta and boost competition, but in reality it has the opposite effect by hurting European businesses and consumers,” Google says.
Apple also let go of the regulators.
“Today's decision was forced to wrap us in red tape, slow Apple's ability to innovate for European users, and provide new features for free to companies that don't need to play with the same rules,” Apple said in a statement.
“It's bad for our products and our European users. We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand their concerns on behalf of our users,” the company added.
Last month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asked Rivera to explain how the EU would implement digital market laws.
Jordan (R-Ohio) 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.
