EU pushes forward with Apple antitrust investigation despite Trump's criticisms
In the interest of what it calls fairness and stability, the European Union has decided to push forth with anti-trade investigations into companies like Apple, Meta, and X, hoping to reach a conclusion by March.
EU set to issue ruling on Apple in March
In January, the EU had initially held off on fining tech giants as it waited to find out the impact of the incoming Trump administration. Now it appears as though the plan is to continue business as usual.
Teresa Ribera, the EU's competition chief, has told Reuters that, while it's open to negotiations with the White House, it will not be bullied into changing laws at the whim of US policymakers.
"We need to stick to our strengths and principles," she said in an interview on Monday. "We need to be flexible but we cannot transact on human rights nor are we going to transact on the unity of Europe, and we are not going to transact on democracy and values."
Trump, for his part, believes that the European Union has too many rules, claiming that the fines imposed on US tech companies by the EU are essentially taxation.
In March 2024, the EU launched mass DMA violation probes against Apple, Google, and Meta. It claimed that it had reason to believe the companies were failing to comply with the laws outlined in the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Regarding Apple, the EU was concerned that the Cupertino-based tech giant violated laws in three key areas. This included violating anti-steering rules concerning the App Store, third-party browser support, and the new fee structure put in place for third-party app marketplaces.
Apple has made efforts to bring some of these areas into compliance. For instance, in August, Apple simplified the process for EU users to choose alternative apps to Apple's default ones.
Whether or not its efforts will be viewed as sufficient remains to be seen. The year-long investigation is now set to wrap up, with Ribera announcing that the decisions on Apple and Meta will be announced in March.
"There will be decisions along the lines that have been discussed with the companies, developed and based on evidence," she said.
It's worth noting that the EU is also investigating X for separate concerns. The commission is concerned whether or not the platform violates the regions rules regarding illegal content. Ribera says that Musk's role in the Trump administration will not influence the EU's decision.
Before Trump's second term, the EU did not shy away from enforcing the DMA and doling out fines as it saw fit. In March 2024, it fined Apple $2 billion for anticompetitive practice with Apple Music -- despite Apple's streaming service being far from dominant.
In 2023, Apple launched the iPhone 15, the first of Apple's iPhones to feature USB-C charging. The change was made to comply with a DMA rule aimed at reducing the number of proprietary chargers on the market.
While Apple appears to have followed EU regulations with practically surgical precision, its rivals have described it as doing so with malicious compliance. Epic Games said Apple's EU concessions were "hot garbage."
Apple, for its part, has maintained that its done enough to comply with DMA law. It hasn't done so quietly, though, as it published a whitepaper detailing the risks of third-party app stores. It then published another whitepaper addressing its concerns regarding the EU's interoperability laws.
Victories against EU regulations have been rare for Apple. However, last November the EU dropped a four-year-long investigation into Apple's treatment of rival audiobook developers after the initial complaint was withdrawn.
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Comments
Propose something you know will get extreme push back, evaluate the push back and try again with something equally bad and see if that passes the sniff test. Inch by inch.
In this example, 'malicious compliance' is very apt and entirely deliberate.
That's where we are now. Waiting for the EU to say if Apple's most recent proposals (from last year) do actually pass the sniff test or not.
IMO, they don't. The Core Technology Fee is my guess at where things might fall short and if that happens a fine will be imposed. That is the risk of surgical precision with compliance. If you miss, things go south quickly. The results of compliance evaluation were always set for next month so they are on schedule. We'll see.
As for Trump, well, after this weekend's events the US has now lost any remaining good faith that was left within the EU.
The EU is absolutely fuming and with good reason.
He moans that the EU sells a lot of food in the US and that the EU refuses a lot of US food.
That's because that food isn't up to snuff under EU regulations. Compliance again.
The EU makes the rules and they must be complied with. Like them or not.
It's the same for Apple. The EU is a 'Walled Garden' of sorts but the door to leave is always open.
The challenge for Europe is that it's not entirely clear that there really is anything called "Europe," nor is it clear that "Europeans" (if they exist) care about democracy any more than Trump voters do.
We shall see!
On the other stuff - Apple does not have a monopoly on apps - there are plenty of options open to consumers - people who decide to buy Apple products do so because of quality, security, privacy and the ecosystem safety - for the EU to dictate that should change is just plain wrong and it is just a form of taxation - again the USA should push back on the EU on this.
In some other areas, such as privacy laws - I think the EU is ahead of the USA - also on harmful content and in this areas I think they are more right than wrong.
The EU didn't fine Apple.
Was the 0.005% rate for 2014 just or unjust?
Was Apple, effectively being able to decide what it made available for taxation, just or unjust?
To me (Dutch), the idea of a "level playing field" is great, along with other concepts of the European project, including diversity and food safety. But yes, it may well be attractive to entrepreneurs to try to turn the protection of the "level playing field" into a means of keeping competition out.