ccording to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the European Union has penalized both Apple and Meta tech giants for breaking the Digital Markets Act.
The EU fined Apple about $568 million, while the Meta fine represents a smaller punishment of about $227 million, about half of the Apple fine.
It seems that Apple is accused of failing to comply with the EU regulations that require allowing app developers to notify their customers about different methods of buying various digital products. On the other hand, the Meta tech giant is required by the European Union to stop demanding that Instagram and Facebook users agree to the social media personalized ads.
Also, the EU upholds the idea that both social media platforms have forced their users to pay for a subscription if they refuse to have personalized ads.
Currently, the European Commission is deciding whether, after this Meta fine, the company should be allowed to offer a “less-personalized ads” option for users. This option was revealed by the EU a couple of months ago, in order to give tech giant Meta the opportunity to keep this feature compliant with the EU regulations.
When asked about these recent situations, both companies, Apple and Meta, stated that they are planning to apply for reconsideration. In a recent statement, Apple stated that it is considering that the European Union has wrongly targeted Apple, and these decisions are significantly affecting Apple users and Apple products.
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"Today's announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free," Apple said in its statement.
It should be mentioned that the social media group is also not satisfied with the EU decision and will soon appeal this Meta fine.
"The European Commission is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards,", Joel Kaplan, Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, stated.
"This isn't just about a fine; the Commission forcing us to change our business model effectively imposes a multi-billion-dollar tariff on Meta while requiring us to offer an inferior service.", Joel Kaplan added.
Even more so, it seems that the other two popular companies, X and Alphabet’s Google, are potentially facing an EU fine soon, but additional details about this potential penalization have not been disclosed yet.
Stay tuned for more updates!
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