Apple charged for breaching EU regulations

Apple’s legal team has been working double time this year. The company is facing yet ANOTHER lawsuit, this time from the European Union.

So, in March of this year, the European Union’s Digital Markets Act went into effect. 

Regulators designed the law to prevent big tech companies from gatekeeping certain services. Specifically, they wanted to make digital markets fairer by breaking up “closed tech ecosystems that lock consumers into a single company’s products or services.” cough-Apple-cough

Right out of the blocks, Apple, Google and Meta were targeted and placed under investigation. And it’s a surprise to absolutely no one that Apple is the first one to be charged.

I mean, Apple customers have complained for years about how hard it is to integrate other apps with the iOS operating system. That’s what the EU means by a closed ecosystem. It’s all Apple. So, it stifles competition by forcing customers to purchase more stuff from the company. 

Earlier this year, the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the EU, hit Apple with a US$2 billion fine for anti-competition violations. 

In that case, music streaming platform Spotify said that Apple created harmful policies that hampered communication with customers. Apple, of course, has Apple Music, a competitor to Spotify.

They said the App Store rules prevent competitors like Spotify from directly communicating with users about promotions, perks, deals, discounts, or even ways to upgrade their service. And that gives the upper hand to Apple. 

On top of that, Apple takes 30% of each Spotify purchase made in the app store.

So the EU fined the company. 

Then on the other side of the ocean, it’s Apple vs the US Justice Department. The DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company, accusing them of illegally monopolising the smartphone market, boxing out competitors, stifling innovation and keeping prices artificially high. Make sure to check out my video on that for all the details. 

Now, it’s Apple’s turn to respond to the EU’s findings and plead their case or make changes. 

The company is facing fines worth up to 10% of its global revenue, which could amount to BILLIONS maybe of hundreds of billions, or daily penalties.

The commission is expected to make a final decision by March 2025. 

And that’s the bottom line.