Apple and Meta hit with combined $797 million fine for violating EU's DMA antitrust rules

[midian182]

What just happened? The European Commission has just hit Apple and Meta with combined fines of almost $1 billion. It marks the first fines handed out by the Commission under its Digital Markets Act (DMA), and arrives just after President Trump threatened to levy tariffs against any countries that penalize US companies.

Apple was handed the larger fine of 500 million euros ($570 million), while Meta has to pay 200 million euros ($228 million), making a combined total of 700 million euros, or $797 million.

In addition to its $570 million fine, Apple has been slapped with a cease-and-desist order requiring it to make further product changes by June. If it fails to comply with this order, the Commission can fine it for every additional day it refuses to cooperate.

The penalties come after a year-long investigation in which the Commission found that Meta forced Facebook and Instagram users to either pay a subscription fee to avoid ads or consent to their personal data being used for targeted advertising.

In response to the Commission's findings, Meta has modified its ad approach in the EU, now offering unpaid users a version of the platforms with fewer unskippable, full-screen personalized ads. However, in a compliance report published on March 6, the company argued that it has "continued to receive additional demands that go beyond what is written in the law," despite taking steps to align with the DMA. The Commission is currently examining this model to determine if it complies with the rules.

Apple, meanwhile, broke the DMA's steering rule. This requires gatekeepers – Apple, Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, and Microsoft – to allow business users (like app developers or online sellers) to steer customers to offers or alternative distribution channels outside the gatekeeper's platform, without penalties or restrictions.

There was some good news for the companies. The Commission has also closed an investigation into Apple's compliance with the DMA's rules on browsers and default apps following changes that it introduced. Moreover, Facebook's Marketplace will no longer be designated as a regulated service, so it will no longer fall under the DMA's remit.

An Apple representative said it will appeal the decision, which it called "yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting" the company and forcing it to "give away (its) technology for free."

"We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way," the representative said.

Meta said it also plans to appeal the ruling.

"The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards," said Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer. "This isn't just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service. And by unfairly restricting personalized advertising the European Commission is also hurting European businesses and economies."

Apple and Meta must pay the fines within 60 days or risk further financial penalties. Under its rules, the Commission could have fined Meta up to $16 billion and Apple $39 billion based on their earnings last year.

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Apple and Meta hit with combined $797 million fine for violating EU's DMA antitrust rules

 

[Puiu]

Good. It's about time these companies start paying for their anti-consumer and anti-competitive practices.

 

[RudyBob]

Europe. It's a joke. They are like organized crime making companies pay protection. Time to boost the tariffs

 

[Puiu]

Europe. It's a joke. They are like organized crime making companies pay protection. Time to boost the tariffs

You are just jealous that we actually have a functioning system while the US rots away because of corporate greed and zero protections for the little guy.

Did you like it when trump bragged about how his rich friends got even more rich after their insider trading fraud?

 

[MSIGamer]

"The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards," said Joel Kaplan.

They must all adhere to the same rules, no exceptions. Kind of hilarious how sour these corpos react when they have to follow non-US privacy rules.
If you're operating in Europe you need to submit to European standards, it doesn't matter how much money you make.

 

[CowsGotMilk]

Europe. It's a joke. They are like organized crime making companies pay protection. Time to boost the tariffs

There are strict, consumers protecting laws in EU. If you don't respect rules, there are penalties like in all civilizated countries.

 

[AnilD]

Europe. It's a joke. They are like organized crime making companies pay protection. Time to boost the tariffs

The EU just handed Apple and Meta their own version of a “freemium” model: free to operate, premium fines if you don’t play nice.

Also loving how Meta’s argument is basically: if we can’t track people intensely for profit, it’s actually bad for them.

 

[Xelions]

I was gonna say its US vs World, and the World wins everyday of the week but it's really Trump+Cronies+MegaCORPs vs the World.

Every country has its sovereign rights, you wanna operate there follow their rules or sweetly f*#koff! - this includes not interfering with another country's rights whilst operating elsewhere. This is why your business model should encompass as many places as possible with as little red tape as you can afford.

 

[gingerbill]

Excellent news

 

[Axeia]

That's step 1, how about for step 2 the EU starts taxing the income they make in the EU from EU citizens.
The trade deficit based tariffs were only based on physical goods whilst the big export for the US is services from the big tech companies.
If the EU gets tariffed it's only fair that in return big tech starts paying some taxes.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

There are strict, consumers protecting laws in EU. If you don't respect rules, there are penalties like in all civilizated countries.

Except they don't protect consumers. They actually harm consumers, in order to help other businesses get in on Apple's gravy train. Apple offers one kind of a mobile device interface, and Google another. The EU wants them all to be the same lol.

That's step 1, how about for step 2 the EU starts taxing the income they make in the EU from EU citizens.
The trade deficit based tariffs were only based on physical goods whilst the big export for the US is services from the big tech companies.
If the EU gets tariffed it's only fair that in return big tech starts paying some taxes.

Of course if you kept up with current events, you'd know that just last year the EU taxed Apple on €13 billion. Ireland had either worked out a deal so that Apple could move its money to its country or tricked Apple into gaining taxes on its global income. I'm sure you would consider that practice by the EU and Ireland to be "fair" when it had been in place for 30 years before Apple was forced to pay back taxes.

 

[Axeia]

Except they don't protect consumers. They actually harm consumers, in order to help other businesses get in on Apple's gravy train. Apple offers one kind of a mobile device interface, and Google another. The EU wants them all to be the same lol.
Of course if you kept up with current events, you'd know that just last year the EU taxed Apple on €13 billion. Ireland had either worked out a deal so that Apple could move its money to its country or tricked Apple into gaining taxes on its global income. I'm sure you would consider that practice by the EU and Ireland to be "fair" when it had been in place for 30 years before Apple was forced to pay back taxes.

Long long aware of that. I don't consider any part of it to be fair. Ireland shouldn't be positioning itself as a big tech tax haven. Apple shouldn't be trying to avoid taxes so hard, even when it comes to people getting ripped off the blame is on the one who fell for the too good to be true scheme if the court rules it so. A company with hundreds of bookkeepers and lawyers can be held to at least the same standard.
Let's stop defending the mega companies and countries trying to screw others over - think of the average person instead. Literally billions of tax evasion.
The whole point of taxes being percentage based is so everyone pays them equally. All these loopholes and exceptions for the super rich and mega companies is what's fueling the wealth inequality which everyone except the 0.001% should be against.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Long long aware of that. I don't consider any part of it to be fair. Ireland shouldn't be positioning itself as a big tech tax haven. Apple shouldn't be trying to avoid taxes so hard, even when it comes to people getting ripped off the blame is on the one who fell for the too good to be true scheme if the court rules it so. A company with hundreds of bookkeepers and lawyers can be held to at least the same standard.
Let's stop defending the mega companies and countries trying to screw others over - think of the average person instead. Literally billions of tax evasion.
The whole point of taxes being percentage based is so everyone pays them equally. ask these loopholes and exceptions for the super rich and mega companies is what's fueling the wealth inequality which everyone except the 0.001% should be against.

It's not tax evasion if they thought it was legal and the Irish government led them to believe that. And the EU did nothing about it until decades later when they could collect massive amounts of interest on top of it. Just a reminder, once the EU pursued litigation action on the back taxes, Apple set up an escrow account for that 13 billion Euros years before they ever had to pay it back.

 

[umeng2002]

Make that a 7 or 70 billion dollar fine, and these companies might care.

 

[RudyBob]

You are just jealous that we actually have a functioning system while the US rots away because of corporate greed and zero protections for the little guy.

Did you like it when trump bragged about how his rich friends got even more rich after their insider trading fraud?

Wrong and if you can post lies I can point out that you lie.

 

[OortCloud]

Wrong and if you can post lies I can point out that you lie.

There was me agreeing with Puiu that Europe was in fact a system with values, principles and ideals, unlike the US which has become a morality-vacuum run by corporations and driven by nothing but greed with an added dose of racial hatred and bigotry from the current 'administration'... but then you came up with that inciteful response it's completely changed my world-view.

 

[Puiu]

It's not tax evasion if they thought it was legal and the Irish government led them to believe that. And the EU did nothing about it until decades later when they could collect massive amounts of interest on top of it. Just a reminder, once the EU pursued litigation action on the back taxes, Apple set up an escrow account for that 13 billion Euros years before they ever had to pay it back.

It is tax evasion if you illegally shift sales from other countries to the tax heaven country. It's also illegal if you use the BEPS tool to dodge taxes. It's also illegal for companies to receive preferential state aid in the EU.

Apple got fined because it deserved to. This is a known fact and even Irish people acknowledged that it was morally wrong for the Irish government to give Apple effectively 0% taxes.

 

[Puiu]

Wrong and if you can post lies I can point out that you lie.

Show me the lies. Even a 5yo child can understand that trump and his posse indulged themselves in insider trading schemes.

But hey, you ppl are celebrating a criminal receiving immunity. I doubt you care that they are breaking the law so blatantly.

 

[Axeia]

It's not tax evasion if they thought it was legal and the Irish government led them to believe that.

They paid 0.005% in taxes. Shouldn't that have their army of bookkeepers and lawyers scratching their heads? Does that sound too good to be true or does that sound legit?

And the EU did nothing about it until decades later

"On 29 August 2016, after a two-year investigation, European Commission ordered Apple to pay €13 billion, plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes from 2004–14 to the Irish state"
So that's over exactly a one decade period. And the investigation took 2 years. Not really decades is it?
All other delays are caused by Apple/Ireland.

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And yeah I'm of the (apparently controversial?) opinion that Apple should pay more than 0.005%.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

They paid 0.005% in taxes. Shouldn't that have their army of bookkeepers and lawyers scratching their heads? Does that sound too good to be true or does that sound legit?


"On 29 August 2016, after a two-year investigation, European Commission ordered Apple to pay €13 billion, plus interest, in unpaid Irish taxes from 2004–14 to the Irish state"
So that's over exactly a one decade period. And the investigation took 2 years. Not really decades is it?
All other delays are caused by Apple/Ireland.

---

And yeah I'm of the (apparently controversial?) opinion that Apple should pay more than 0.005%.

Look at the timeline, the first illegal action was in 1991. I am in favor of higher taxes too, but if the government was saying it’s what they could do then you should blame them. Would you blame people who took student loan forgiveness, or Biden if he actually got the money out before it was ruled as illegal?

 

[Puiu]

Look at the timeline, the first illegal action was in 1991. I am in favor of higher taxes too, but if the government was saying it’s what they could do then you should blame them. Would you blame people who took student loan forgiveness, or Biden if he actually got the money out before it was ruled as illegal?

The fact that Apple ahs been doing illegal things for so long just makes it worse. At least the EU woke up and made them pay for it as they should.

No, it wasn't just "the government" that's to blame. The record show that Apple knew that what they are doing is against the law and they still did it. What's worse, is that they just hid what they were doing in 2015 with the restructuring using another illegal scheme. It's just pathetic to protect them now.

And unlike the US, there is something called "the spirit of the law" in the EU. If a law says that you are not allowed to do X, then you better forget about looking for loopholes and technical idiocracies. A good example of this would be the 4090D that Nvidia is selling in China, which is just a stupid technicality which avoids the law and it only works in the US. This would not fly in the EU (if it was an EU law).