The European Commission announced this Monday the start of formal investigations against Apple, Alphabet and Meta for possible violations of the new European Digital Markets Law that imposes the strictest rules on technology giants to avoid abuses of competition and monopolistic practices; a new framework that the European Union has been applying to big technology companies for just two weeks.
The Community Executive, which under the new regulatory framework will be able to impose fines on non-compliant parties of up to 10% of their global turnover in a first violation and up to 20% in the event of a repeat offense, now has a period of twelve months. to take a decision.
The Community Vice President responsible for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, warned at a press conference in Brussels that the cases announced this Monday "do not mean that the Commission endorses the other practices of other platforms whose investigations are ongoing or have not yet been opened." ".
Since last March 7, community services have imposed the strictest control on six large platforms - Apple, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Microsoft and ByteDance (TikTok) - designated "gatekeepers of access "to the network due to its weight in the digital market.
In addition to the initiation of these sanctioning proceedings against Apple, Alphabet and Meta, Brussels has also announced that it is launching the preliminary examination phase for two other cases, one that affects Apple and the other Amazon, in the case of the latter, to clarify whether is giving preferential treatment to its products on its sales platform.
The Organization of European Consumers (BEUC, for its acronym in French) has welcomed the step taken by Brussels because, in its opinion, "it is a clear sign that the Commission is serious about enforcing the law" in the face of "concern "that the large platforms are not taking all the measures required by the new EU rules.
According to the commissioner responsible for Telecommunications, Thierry Breton, at a press conference with Vestager, the community services have been testing in close contact with the large platforms "for months" to "help them adapt" to the new demands that the EU has imposed since on March 7th.
The French liberal maintains that thanks to this initiative "more changes have been seen in large technology companies in 18 months than in a decade", but he has also warned that Brussels is not clear that "the solutions offered by Alphabet, Apple and Meta respect its obligations" to guarantee a "fair and open" digital space for European citizens and companies and has predicted "heavy fines" for those who persist in non-compliance.
Specifically, the Commission investigates whether Apple and Alphabet respect the obligation that the "gatekeepers" now have to allow application developers to "direct" consumers to offers outside the platforms' own application stores for free. of the guardians.
In another procedure, Brussels is also investigating Alphabet to determine whether it uses search results through Google, which it owns, to promote a 'self-preference' for its own search services such as 'Google Shopping', 'Google Flights'. ', 'Google Hotels' versus other rivals.
Another case is directed against Apple to check whether it complies with the obligation to allow end users to easily uninstall software applications found on iOS, as well as easily change the default settings and show alternative options to the browsers or search engines they find by default. on their iPhones.
Finally, Brussels has another file against Meta to examine a new policy by which it asks users to choose between paying to use its services or giving their consent for their personal data to be shared with other company platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. , for use in targeted advertising.
