The European Union (EU) announced that it has launched investigations against the world’s largest technology companies to examine anti-competitive practices. Alphabet, which owns Meta, Apple and Google, is being examined for possible breaches under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), introduced in 2022.
Apple, Meta, Google and more are under scrutiny
If they have breached the rules, these companies could face fines as large 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 based in Europe. Five are in the US and ByteDance is in Beijing. The companies were immediately investigated 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 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 USA filed a giant lawsuit against Apple last week, accusing it of monopolizing the mobile 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 noted that using subscriptions to avoid ads is a well-established business model across many industries.
Google’s most powerful artificial intelligence is unlocked for free! How to use?
Google Gemini 1.5 Pro is now available. How to use Google’s most powerful artificial intelligence for testing purposes?
The EU’s announcement included five different questions, including whether Apple and Alphabet do not allow apps to freely communicate and contract with users, whether Apple does not give users enough choices, and whether Meta is unfair in asking people to pay to avoid having their data used for ads. It was stated that the act of non-compliance will be examined.
It is clear that the EU takes a determined stance in the fight against anti-competitive practices. What are you thinking? Please don’t forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.