EU Commission fines Apple, Meta over digital law breaches

Apple was found to have breached its “anti-steering” obligation under the DMA, while Meta was considered not to have given consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data, another stipulation of the DMA.

However, the EU also closed an investigation of Apple over its user choice obligations after the tech giant complied with the DMA by making it easy to select a default browser and for users to remove pre-installed apps such as Safari.

What were the fines for?

Apple was fined after the Commission concluded that the company prevented developers from steering customers outside its App Store to allow them to access cheaper deals.

The fine was imposed on Meta over its “pay for privacy” system, which means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.

The Commission concluded that Meta did not provide Facebook and Instagram users a less personalized but equivalent version of the platforms, and “did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

The Commission said that the fine on Meta concerned only the time period during which EU end users were solely offered the “consent or pay” option, from March 2024 to November 2024. That is when Meta introduced a new ads model allegedly using less personal data.

That model is currently under scrutiny by the EU.