Brussels opens new investigations into Apple, Meta and Google

APPLE, Meta and Google face fines of billions of euros after the European Union opened the first investigations under new laws to rein in big tech.

Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton, the EU’S competition and digital markets chiefs, announced five investigations into the three companies yesterday. They concern areas including the companies’ smartphone app stores and Meta charging a monthly fee to users in Europe who do not want to see adverts on Facebook and Instagram.

It comes less than three weeks after the EU’S Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into force. The laws are designed to rein in gatekeepers – Google owner Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tiktok owner Bytedance, Meta and Microsoft – which face fines of up to 10pc of their annual revenue for not complying.

In Apple’s case, this would be up to $38bn (£30bn), for Google $30.7bn and for Meta $13.4bn. This month Apple was fined €1.8bn for breaking EU competition laws by favouring its own music streaming service over rivals.

The investigations concern Google and Apple rules restricting how apps can promote cheaper subscriptions outside the companies’ app stores, Google promoting its own services in search results, Apple offering alternative web browsers to Safari, and Meta charging a monthly fee for a version of Facebook and Instagram without adverts. It could mean Meta being forced to offer a version of Instagram and Facebook without personalised adverts for free.

Apple said: “We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations.” Google said: “We have made significant changes to the way our services operate in Europe,” adding:“we will continue to defend our approach in the coming months.”

Meta defended charging users as an alternative to advertising, saying: “We will continue to engage constructively with the commission.”