Johanna Geron / EPA Pool
European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen
Fines are justified by violation of the rules of loyal competition and the choice of the user, and can be even higher.
This is the first time that the European Union has a company for some company under the digital market law, which the goal (owner of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, among others) and Apple will have violated.
The lawsuit now aggravates the bad relations between the EU and the American multinationals, and require a fine of 700 million euros to the two companies – 500 million to Apple and 200 million to the goal.
Joel Kaplan, director of goal world affairs, criticized the EU’s decision, accusing her of “try to harm American companies Successful, ”according to.
“It is not just a fine; the Commission, by forcing us to change our business model, effectively imposes on the goal tariff of several thousand millions of dollars, Forcing us to offer a lower service, ”added the company representative owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who will appeal the decision.
At issue is, explains the European Commission, violation of the rules of loyal competition and the choice of the user – Apple, for example, prevented the breeders of application from distributing apps outside the App Store, explains the.
“We spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users are requested. Despite numerous meetings, the commission continues to change barriers to the goal with each step on the way,” complains an Apple representative.
Already the goal, in November 2023, adopted an advertising model “Consent or pay”, that forced European Facebook and Instagram users to consent to “Personal Data Combination” for personalized advertising or paying for versions without platform ads.
Fines are still far short of 10% of the annual global turnover that technological companies can be ordered to pay.
European Consumer Organization Director-General Agustín Reyna said in turn that “Apple and goal had a lot of time to comply with the digital market law, but instead, instead, delayed compliance and tried to distort the rules for their benefit. ”
