Apple faces fines of $75.72 million per day in the EU for violating regulations – News Channel

Apple is set to become the first major technology company to be fined under the EU’s newly introduced Digital Markets Act (DMA).

For context, the DMA became enforceable in March and empowers the European Commission to regulate major technology companies, especially industry “gatekeepers” – companies with a market capitalization of at least A$122 billion and having a platform with 45 million monthly active end-users in the European Union . These include companies such as Apple, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet.

Back in March, the European Commission said it was looking into potential breaches related to Apple’s new fee structure for alternative app stores. He investigated whether Apple charges a “core technology fee” to developers who want to “target” users to offerings outside the App Store. Apple also gets an additional 3 percent if a developer uses its payment processor.

New report in Financial Times. indicates that Apple has in fact been found to have breached the DMA rules and for failing to comply with the rule it faces a fine of up to 5 per cent of its global daily turnover per day – which would amount to a penalty of approximately A$75.72 million per day.

The EU said Apple did not allow developers to promote their alternative offerings without imposing fees.

Even if Apple manages to escape the latest media reports that the EU’s findings are true, that doesn’t mean Apple will face immediate penalties. Instead, it could be given a chance to correct its behavior and then allow the EU to reconsider its decision on whether imposing a fine is still justified.

In addition to this investigation, the DMA could throw other problems at Apple. For example, in April, Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president of the European Commission for a Europe fit for the digital age, noted that the latest DMA rules could force Apple to allow users to remove the Photos app from their iPhones if they wanted to do so.

She noted that Apple did not prevent several apps from being installed (one of which would be Photos) and prevents end users from changing their default status (e.g. Cloud), as required by the DMA.