The Digital Markets Act that went into force on March 6 has been adopted with the aim of removing monopolies of such players as Apple. Physically observed on June 24, Margrethe Vestager said that the Apple brand became the first company to get penalized under the Digital Markets Acts. “As for Apple and the new business model it has introduced, the EC vice-president in charge of competition explained to X that the company’s actions cause concern because they push app developers not to function as decentralized markets and to directly reach end-users on iOS.”
Recall that all the platforms that have at least 45 million users in Europe are within the scope of the DMA. They should permit app developers to take users to solutions beyond their app stores. As of now, six gatekeepers regulate by DMA. These are the American GAFAM Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft; as well as the Chinese group ByteDance possessing TikTok. Out of these giants, 22 services that they offer are regulated by the DMA.
Claimed for years as the poster child of the GAFAM, Margrethe Vestager regularly monitors the activities of these companies. The European Commission has been rather active during the past few months and has opened five dawn raids in its preliminary investigations. Well, he has just opened a sixth case, presumably, and this one is all about the Cupertino studio. Apple will redefine their business model, which are the business terms that Apple sets for application developers in order to reach the end customers via the iOS platform known as the criteria that must be met by the application developers in order to transact as market substitutes or as applications that are downloaded and installed by the end users This complexity is analyzed by the Executive Vice-president of the European Commission as the ordeal that the end users have to go through to download substitute markets and
In a speech which could be considered as an indirect campaign speech and utilizing the Euro 2024 men’s football tournament, he says “the ball is now in the guardians’ court”. The latter needs to assure the EU “that the measures they are putting in place will enable compliance” with DMA. If not, though, we will have to act, he becomes stern in his warning. Terms that should not be overlooked as Apple becomes the first firm to be penalized for breaching the DMA.
