US government: EU penalty against Apple and Meta is "economic blackmail"

The US retort to the EU fines against Apple and Meta was not long in coming: such penalties are a "new form of economic blackmail" and will "not be tolerated", a White House spokesperson announced in a statement quoted by the Reuters news agency, among others. Such regulation of US companies would be classified as a "trade barrier" and a "direct threat to a free civil society".

Comparatively small penalties against Apple and Meta

On Wednesday, the EU Commission imposed initial fines against Apple and Meta of 500 million euros and 200 million euros respectively. The companies, which are classified as gatekeepers by EU competition regulators, are accused of violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Both companies have announced that they will appeal.

The amount of the fine is practically pocket change for Apple (and Meta), but the companies must change their offending business practices. Apple must allow other companies to link to cheaper offers from within iOS apps and is therefore apparently not allowed to charge high commissions on subscriptions and purchases on the web, for example, or to include deterrent warnings when such a link is tapped. As a result, billions in commission income are ultimately at stake. These are part of Apple's growing services business, with which the company generated almost 100 billion US dollars last year. Both companies now have 60 days to rectify the infringements – after which the EU can impose further daily fines.

Epic Games welcomes DMA fine against Apple

Similar to the Trump administration, influential IT lobby groups from the US also described the EU fines on Thursday as "tariffs" and an escalation in the transatlantic trade dispute. Apple again argued that no user wanted the changes in iOS – and that it was bad for security. Only the US company Epic Games, which has been railing against the power of platform operators Apple and Google for years, broke ranks: the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act is "great news for developers worldwide", wrote Epic founder Tim Sweeney. The action is also not unfairly aimed at US companies, agrees co-founder Mark Rein, but frees all companies from "unlawful fees". Apple apparently received 300 million US dollars in commission from in-app purchases in Fortnite alone – before Epic Games provoked its expulsion from the App Store. Epic now offers Fortnite in its own games store for iOS and Android – outside the platform operators' stores.

(lbe)