Apple has become the first major tech company accused of violating new rules for the European Union’s digital markets, three days after the tech giant said it would not launch artificial intelligence in the bloc due to regulation.
On Monday, the European Commission said that Apple’s App Store prevented developers from communicating with its users and promoting offers to them directly, a practice known as anti-steering.
“Our preliminary position is that Apple does not fully allow steering. The direction is key to ensuring that app developers are less reliant on gatekeeper app stores and that consumers are aware of better deals,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
On X, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, made a more damning assessment. “For too long Apple has been squeezing innovative companies, denying consumers new opportunities and choices,” he said.
The EU referred to its accusations on Monday as “preliminary results.” Apple now has the opportunity to respond to the charges and, if a deal is not reached, the bloc has the power to impose fines (which can reach up to 10 percent of the company’s global turnover) by March 2025. .
Tensions between Apple and the EU have been rising for months. Brussels opened an investigation into the smartphone maker in March for failing to comply with the bloc’s competition rules. Although investigations were also opened into Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Apple’s relationship with European developers has long been the focus of attention in Brussels.
In March, one of the MEPs who negotiated the Digital Markets Act told WIRED that Apple was the first logical target of the new rules, describing the company as “low-hanging fruit.” According to the DMA, it is illegal for big tech companies to prefer their own services over those of their rivals.
Developers have protested against new commercial terms imposed on them by Apple, describing the company’s policies as “abusive,” “extortion” and “ridiculously punitive.”
Apple spokesman Rob Saunders said Monday that he was confident the company was following the law. “All developers doing business in the EU on the App Store have the opportunity to use the capabilities we have introduced, including the ability to direct app users to the web to complete purchases at a very competitive price,” he says. he.
On Friday, Apple said it would not launch its AI features in the EU this year due to what the company described as “regulatory uncertainties.” “Specifically, we are concerned that the DMA’s interoperability requirements could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that put user privacy and data security at risk,” Saunders said in a statement. The affected features are iPhone Mirroring, improvements to SharePlay Screen Sharing, and Apple’s first foray into generative AI, Apple Intelligence.
Apple is not the only company to blame new EU rules for its decision to delay the release of new features. Last year, Google delayed the EU launch of its ChatGPT rival Bard, and in early June Meta halted plans to train its AI on Europeans’ personal Facebook and Instagram data following discussions with privacy regulators. “This is a step back for European innovation, competition in AI development and further delays in bringing the benefits of AI to people in Europe,” the company said at the time.