EU, new warning to Apple: ‘App Store violates digital markets act’

Brussels – And that’s three: the European Commission sends Apple a new notice of non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and orders to adopt remedies for the distortion, which, in this specific case, concerns listening to music online. The checks conducted by the EU Executive’s Antitrust body find that the App Store rules violate the DMA to the extent that they prevent app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels for offers and content.

Apple offers consumers no choices or alternatives to its services:  choice, stresses Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, “is critical to ensuring that app developers are less dependent on gatekeepers,” the big web giants that effectively control the web. Hence the notification for the Cupertino-based company: the third since the new EU rules came into force.

 On March 25, 2024, the EU Commission launched non-compliance investigations into 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.” A month later, on April 29, the community executive designated Apple as a ‘gatekeeper’ under the DMA regarding its iPadOS, its tablet operating system. 

It is the third audit against Apple ending up in the crosshairs of an EU that has the tools to impose hefty fines. In case of violation of the Digital Markets Act, Brussels can impose sanctions of up to 10 percent of the total worldwide turnover of so-called ‘gatekeepers,” which can reach up to 20 percent in case of repeated violations. In addition, in the case of systemic breaches, the Commission also has the power to adopt additional remedies, such as forcing a gatekeeper to sell an enterprise or parts of an enterprise or prohibiting the gatekeeper from acquiring additional services related to systemic non-compliance.