EU Probes into US Tech Companies
The top three tech companies are lying under investigation launched by The European Union on Monday, March 25. These tech companies identified as Apple, and Alphabet Meta are getting investigated under the sweeping new Digital Markets Act tech legislation. The news came into existence after the statement shared by the executive arm of The European Union, The European Commission. In the given statement the EU said that they opened a probe into Google, Apple, and Meta for potential breaches of the latest constituted anti-trust law.
It is worth noting that the latest rigid Digital Markets Act (DMA) was enacted on March 7 and the aim behind the enactment of this law is to make the digital economy fairer and more contestable. The act entered into force on November 1 2022 and became applicable, for the most part, on May 2 2023. Simply said, The DMA seeks to rein in the big technology companies by making it easier for people to move between competing online services such as internet browsers, social media platforms and app stores. Through this regulator, the EU believes in making sure of a fair business atmosphere.
The DMA has appointed 6 big tech companies, including Meta, Alphabet, ByteDance, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, as guards. Their work is to comply with certain provisions and permit more competition in digital markets that includes permission to third-party app stores. The EC states that it will start five non-compliance probes into how Google, Mera and Apple obey the DMA. The probes will be concluded in a year.
The European Commission states in a given statement that “Today, the Commission has opened non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) into Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play and self-preferencing on Google Search, Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store and the choice screen for Safari and Meta’s ‘pay or consent model.” The initial two investigations focus on Apple and Alphabet and are related to anti-steering rules. Under the DMA, digital companies cannot prevent other companies from informing their users about more affordable options for their products or services that are not available through an app store.
Margrethe Vestager, competition chief of the EU stated during a news conference held on Monday that “The way that Apple and Alphabet’s implemented the DMA rules on anti-steering seems to be at odds with the letter of the law. Apple and Alphabet will still charge various recurring fees, and still limit steering.”
Furthermore, Apple has already violated the regulations set by the EU. This month, the top tech firm was fined 1.8 billion euros ($1.95 million) after the European Commission stated that it got to know that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that stopped them from telling users of iOS about other cheap music subscription services that are available outside the app store. According to the commission, they are looking into whether Apple complied with its DMA duties to make sure that customers may quickly modify default settings and uninstall apps from iOS in a third round of examination.
The investigation also looks at whether Apple is actively prompting users with choices to permit them to change default services on iOS, such as for the search engine or web browser. The European Commission states that it is “concerned that Apple’s measures including the design of the web browser choice screen, may be preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services within the Apple ecosystem.”