EU Big Tech probe

Suspect defiance of new digital-markets law

Apple, Google and Meta face noncompliance investigations in connection to a sweeping new European law aimed at cracking down on anticompetitive business practices, EU regulators revealed Monday.

The European Commission, the European Union’s antitrust body, said the probes would focus on “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.’ ”

“We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. “We will now investigate the companies’ compliance with the DMA, to ensure open and contestable digital markets in Europe.”

The investigations are the first major test of Europe’s Digital Markets Act. The law targets six Big Tech titans who were determined to be “gatekeepers” of the Internet — Sundar Pichai’s Alphabet, Amazon, Tim Cook’s Apple, TikTok parent ByteDance, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Microsoft.

If the Big Tech firms are found to have violated the Digital Markets Act, EU regulators can impose fines of up to 10% of their global revenue for their first offense and 20% for repeated violations. They also can order changes to business models “in the case of systemic infringements.”

The European Commission said it is also gathering information as to whether Amazon is self-preferencing its own products in its online store, as well as whether Apple’s new compliance plan for the DMA, which includes charging app developers a new “core technology fee,” was “defeating the purpose” of the law.

Officials have ordered Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta to retain documents related to the inquiries. The companies stand by their policies and said they are in compliance with DMA.

The probe of Apple comes on the heels of last week’s antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department, alleging the company has taken illegal steps to ensure the dominance of its iPhone.

At least three proposed class actions have been filed since Friday in California and New Jersey federal courts by iPhone owners.

In focus European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager (inset) is investigating Big Tech companies headed by (from left) Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet) and Tim Cook (Apple), among others, for violations of the new Digital Markets Act.