The European Commission has recently imposed a 500-million-euro fine on Apple and a 200-million-euro fine on Meta for their breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). These are the first sanctions imposed based on this regulation.
The DMA regulates large digital platforms that, according to its criteria, the Commission considers to be ‘gatekeepers’ to the competition, like Apple, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Microsoft or Meta. The aim of this regulation is to ensure the competition has fairer access to the digital market, and thus avoiding dominant companies abusing their power on users. To this end, the DMA establishes a set of obligations that allow the users’ free choice of services, and sanctions practices that may be considered anticompetitive.
The European Commission is in charge of making sure that the DMA is complied with, and it has the power to impose sanctions when there are breaches. These sanctions may arise in the form of fines of up to 10% of the annual global turnover of any company that is in breach of that set out in the regulation.
With regards to fines and the grounds that have led the European Commission to impose them, Apple has been fined due to a violation of its obligation not to restrict the supply of content by developers. In this case, Apple stopped developers from freely marketing alternative and more cost-effective offers outside of the App Store, which is the platform used for the commercialisation of applications and services on Apple devices which is controlled by Apple and through which Apple receives a commission for any transactions carried out therein.
Meta, on the other hand, has been fined for not providing its users with an alternative option to its data processing model. The only two options available to users of services like Instagram or Facebook were: (i) accepting the data processing model to continue using the platforms free of charge, or (ii) paying a monthly rate to avoid this data processing.
According to the Commission’s criteria, this payment option did not represent a ‘functionally equivalent’ version with less processing of the personal data of users, and therefore, it did not respect users’ rights to freely decide how their personal data was processed.
Both Apple and Meta have spoken out against the Commission’s decision, and Apple has notified its decision to appeal the fine.
The Commission maintains that the fines are just and adequate, and that they are imposed regardless of the nationality of the Company, and with the sole objective of protecting the users’ rights to platforms and ensuring companies that operate in the European digital market comply with the regulations.
Oscar Vilá
Vilá Abogados
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25th April 2025
