There may be a more politically incendiary moment for the European Union to crack down on Big Tech. But it’s hard to think of one.
Starting Wednesday, the European Commission is staring down a series of deadlines to decide whether Apple, Meta and Google are in breach of the EU’s digital competition laws; decisions which, at least on paper, could see the companies hit with fines of up to 10 percent of their worldwide revenues.
The timing’s awkward. In recent weeks, the bloc’s Digital Markets Act has come under sustained fire from United States President Donald Trump, who said it amounts to “overseas extortion” of American companies. As Trump turns up the heat in a global trade war, the White House has gone so far as to threaten additional tariffs in response to the EU’s tech regulation.
But the Commission’s hands are tied. An immovable deadline for the Commission to tell Apple exactly how it should open its products and services up to rivals runs out on March 19.
Normally, this would be uncontroversial; a procedural step in getting a company to comply with a new law. But any decision to censure Big Tech under the DMA risks angering Trump, who last week called Apple “a great company.”
After that, things get serious, as the Commission starts butting up against deadlines to wrap up multiple year-long noncompliance investigations against Apple, Meta and Google.
EU officials have repeatedly promised that decisions are coming soon, at least for Apple and Meta, spurred on by complaints from users like Epic Games and Spotify, which say compliance efforts by Big Tech to date fall short.
“The Commission would face a lot of criticism if it was perceived to be taking a deliberately ‘soft’ approach for geopolitical reasons,” says Zach Meyers, director of research at the Centre on Regulation in Europe think tank.
Mindful of fraught geopolitics, the executive’s leadership has sought in recent weeks to smooth over tensions by insisting that its approach is not anti-American. “[The DMA] does not target U.S. companies,” European commissioners Teresa Ribera and Henna Virkkunen wrote to a U.S. lawmaker earlier this month, stressing that the EU’s aim “is to ensure compliance — not to issue fines.”
Apple of the EU’s eye
The EU currently has six open cases against Apple, Meta and Google for not complying with various parts of the DMA. While probes should technically be completed within a year, these timelines aren’t set in stone, according to Alba Ribera Martínez, a lecturer in law at Universidad Villanueva in Madrid.
What is certain is that there are at least a few touch papers waiting to be lit.
The main target is Apple, which faces three investigations over failing to comply with the DMA, on top of the order from the Commission to open up its devices to rivals.
Next week, the Commission is due to finalize one of these probes — into Apple’s rules for its app store. App developers claim that current rules unfairly prevent them from steering customers away from Apple’s payment system and fees that the company charges developers.
Two people familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they’re not allowed to disclose details, said that Apple would likely face a noncompliance decision on its anti-steering provisions, which could potentially come with a fine for past conduct.
The next dominos to fall will be an investigation into Meta’s pay-or-consent rules, which the Commission should wrap up in the next few weeks, and a second Apple investigation into a broader set of issues concerning its app store, set to be completed this summer.
Apple’s response to a third probe into its browser rules is currently being assessed by the Commission, with recent changes being welcomed by users, the Commission’s DMA lead Alberto Bacchiega said at a hearing on Monday. And Google is in the early stages of two probes into its vertical search service and its app store.
The big question is what kind of action officials will take.
Each noncompliance decision will be accompanied with a cease-and-desist order and a proposal to remedy the infraction. The EU can also issue fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s worldwide revenue, rising to 20 percent for repeat infringements. But it isn’t required to — nor may fines be the most important measure the Commission can take.
“The most consequential decisions that are going to be produced from the noncompliance proceedings are really the remedies,” said Ribera Martínez.
Market impact
Lurking in the background is the reason that the DMA was designed in the first place: to stop Europe’s tech sector being sewn up by a handful of giants.
Hundreds of developers and digital service providers — American and European alike — are waiting to see how rigorously the Commission will enforce the rules.
Many have products ready to roll out, but only once the Commission offers clarity around what the final app store changes will be, said one European game developer, granted anonymity because of their dependency on Apple and Google.
Cologne-based Hubert Weid, whose firm Mobivention launched a small-scale app store last year, has yet to capitalize on the DMA’s promise to open up Apple’s hitherto-walled garden to rivals. “Our finding of success was quite limited,” he said.
Coriell Wright, global public policy director at Epic Games — a larger U.S. firm — put it more bluntly.
“We hope the Commission will come out swinging to put Apple and Google back into compliance,” she said.
Underlying it all is Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s overarching goal to strengthen the EU’s competitiveness to boost its economic performance.
“It is difficult to see how a light-touch approach to DMA enforcement would help,” said Meyers of the Centre on Regulation in Europe. “Emasculating the DMA would undermine the EU’s promise of providing a more predictable and rules-based order than the U.S. does,” he said.
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