Regulatory clouds are gathering over Apple

EU regulators on Monday said Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL ) violated the Digital Markets Act for operating a lucrative app store by illegally preventing software developers from telling customers how to access content outside the app store. Regulators also revealed they had launched a separate investigation into Apple’s practice of charging a “core technology fee” on iOS apps available in the EU. Apple responded that it was confident that the EU changes were compliant with the DMA.

Meanwhile, in the US, Apple is defending itself against antitrust charges brought by the US Department of Justice and 16 attorneys general. In March, they sued Apple for using illegal tactics to maintain a monopoly in the smartphone market.

A new law aimed at reining in tech giants and limiting their power is already starting to cause legal problems for Big Tech.

The Digital Markets Act, which went into effect in March, aims to limit the monopoly power of Apple, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), ByteDance and Meta ( NASDAQ: META) may benefit from imposing more restrictive rules on competitive practices. Apple was the first of the tech titans to receive a claim for DMA infringement by blocking developers from providing alternative ways to purchase their content.

Overall, the European Commission has significantly raised the financial risk Apple faces from global antitrust regulators. As a reminder, Apple has already lost to Spotify (NYSE: SPOT), which accused it of abusing its dominant position in the market in the distribution of music streaming applications, as a result of which Apple is appealing the court’s decision and therefore imposed a penalty on it in the amount of USD 1.95 billion. In addition to assessing Apple’s failure to respect user freedom of choice and control rules, the European Commission is investigating Alphabet to assess its measures to prevent preference for Google over others, as well as its control rules. The EC wants to make sure Alphabet has put in place measures to ensure that rivals on Google’s search engine are treated fairly and non-discriminatoryly.

EU watchdogs are also going after Meta because of its “pay or consent” model. As a gatekeeper, the European Commission is concerned that Meta will be a responsible gatekeeper. The EC wants to prevent gatekeepers from collecting personal data and will question whether Meta obtains consent from users who intend to combine or cross-use their personal data across different core platform services.

Since the Digital Markets Act came into force, the EC has shown that it will ensure that Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft fully comply with the regulations. While this is still a small step towards holding tech titans accountable for their actions, it is a big step in ensuring fair competition in the digital economy and regulating gatekeepers. In the case of Apple, the EC has clearly shown that it means business.

DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to serve as investment advice.

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This article Regulatory Clouds Gather Over Apple originally appeared on Benzinga.com