Tech Giants Apple and Meta Face Historic EU Fines Under Digital Markets Act

Being the first is often viewed as a point of pride in the tech industry — except in this instance.

Apple and Meta have emerged as the initial firms to incur fines under the European Union’s newly enacted Digital Markets Act (DMA), with the European Commission disclosing penalties amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars for breaches of the extensive antitrust legislation.

On Wednesday, the Commission announced that Apple has been penalized €500 million (approximately $570 million), which constitutes around 0.15% of the company’s $391.04 billion in 2024 earnings. This penalty is the result of Apple’s “anti-steering” practices, which hinder app developers from notifying users about alternative purchasing methods outside of the Apple App Store — a practice the EU considers inconsistent with the DMA’s competition regulations.

Meta, the parent entity of Facebook and Instagram, received a fine of €200 million (about $230 million), or 0.14% of its $164.50 billion revenue in 2024. This charge is linked to Meta’s contentious “pay or consent” advertising system, which compels users to either pay for an ad-free experience or consent to their data being utilized for targeted advertising — a system that regulators argue contravenes the DMA’s user choice guidelines.

Both companies possess a 60-day timeframe to comply with the Commission’s decisions to possibly evade the fines. However, reports from The Verge and The New York Times indicate that both Apple and Meta intend to contest these rulings.

These fines signify a noteworthy milestone in the EU’s initiatives to control Big Tech and ensure equitable competition within digital markets. The penalties also arise amid more extensive regulatory examinations of major tech corporations. Google, for instance, has recently encountered two significant antitrust verdicts and a cease-and-desist order from Japan’s antitrust authority regarding alleged unfair practices.

As the DMA commences to transform the digital environment, the cases involving Apple and Meta might establish a benchmark for the intensity with which the EU will uphold its new regulations — and the manner in which tech giants will react.