EU fines Apple, Meta millions of euros under new digital rules

Among the fines, the European Commission imposed a 500 million euro fine on Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.

European Union watchdogs fined Apple and Meta hundreds of millions of euros Wednesday as they stepped up enforcement of the 27-nation bloc’s digital competition rules.

The European Commission imposed a 500 million euro (US$571 million) fine on Apple for preventing app makers from pointing users to cheaper options outside its App Store.

The commission, which is the EU’s executive arm, also fined Meta Platforms 200 million euros because it forced Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing personalized ads or paying to avoid them.

The punishments were smaller than the blockbuster multibillion-euro fines that the commission has previously slapped on Big Tech companies in antitrustcases.

Apple and Meta have to comply with the decisions within 60 days or risk unspecified “periodic penalty payments,” the commission said.

The decisions were expected to come in March, but the self-imposed deadline slipped amid an escalating trans-Atlantic trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly complained about regulations from Brussels affecting American companies.

The penalties were the first issued under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, also known as the DMA. It’s a sweeping rule book that amounts to a set of do’s and don’ts designed to give consumers and businesses more choice and prevent Big Tech “gatekeepers” from cornering digital markets.

The DMA seeks to ensure “that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers,” Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice president for tech sovereignty, said in a statement.