The European Commission today delivered its first financial penalties under the new Digital Markets Act (DMA), imposing a €500 million ($572 million) fine on Apple and €200 million on Meta. This enforcement action concludes investigations initiated in March 2024 and marks a notable turn after reports just last week suggested Brussels had shelved these decisions, apparently to avoid friction during sensitive US-EU trade talks. Today’s announcement underscores the Commission’s resolve to apply its new digital rulebook.
Apple faces its penalty for breaching the DMA’s “anti-steering” provisions. These rules aim to prevent dominant platforms from restricting developers from informing users within their apps about alternative, often cheaper, ways to subscribe or purchase content outside the platform’s own payment system.
The Commission found Apple’s App Store rules improperly limited developers’ ability to communicate freely with their customers and restricted consumers from potentially finding better deals elsewhere. The official EU announcement elaborated that these restrictions hinder developers from fully benefiting from alternative distribution methods.
Meta’s €200 million fine addresses its “pay or consent” model implemented for Facebook and Instagram across Europe in late 2023. Under this system, users had to choose between paying a monthly fee (initially €9.99/€12.99, later reduced to €5.99 following regulatory pressure) or consenting to extensive tracking and combination of their personal data for targeted advertising.
The Commission concluded this binary choice didn’t constitute a valid consent mechanism under the DMA, as it failed to offer a genuine alternative for users unwilling to consent to data processing. The EU’s preliminary findings in 2024 had already flagged concerns that “Meta’s ‘pay or consent’ model may not provide a real alternative in case users do not consent, thereby not achieving the objective of preventing the accumulation of personal data by gatekeepers.”
Today’s fine specifically covers the period from March 2024 until Meta altered its model in November 2024; the Commission confirmed its investigation into the revised model is ongoing.
Enforcement Follows Reported Delays and US Pressure
The decision to issue fines now comes amidst considerable political noise. The EU’s pause was linked to transatlantic trade negotiations and lobbying efforts from Silicon Valley. Meta was reported in early April to be actively engaging with the Trump administration, framing EU regulations as trade barriers. In a White House memorandum from February President Trump had described such regulatory actions against US tech firms as “overseas extortion.”
Furthermore, the current fines arrive after the Commission had temporarily frozen decisions on these DMA cases back in January 2025, citing technical complexities and the need for a strategic review, with an EU spokesperson stating then the cases were “…not yet ready at technical level…” due to their novelty and the need for legal robustness.
Despite these complex factors and earlier comments from some officials downplaying the potential size of initial DMA fines, the Commission pushed forward. Henna Virkkunen, identified by Sky News as the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, stated today, “The decisions adopted today find that both Apple and Meta have taken away this free choice from their users and are required to change their behaviour.”
She added that a goal of the DMA is ensuring “citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers.” Antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera, called the action “firm but balanced” and stated it “send[s] a strong and clear message.” This approach reflects sentiments previously expressed by lawmakers like MEP Stephanie Yon-Courtin, who warned in January, “The DMA cannot be taken hostage.”
Tech Giants Push Back Against Brussels’ Findings
Predictably, both companies signaled their disagreement and intent to appeal. Apple issued a statement declaring, “Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free.”
The iPhone maker further argued, “We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way.”
Meta, via its chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, stated the Commission “is attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.” This fine follows other major EU penalties for Meta, including a record €1.2 billion GDPR fine in May 2023 for data transfers and a €797 million fine over Facebook Marketplace in November 2024.
Apple Avoids Second Fine Through Compliance
While facing the anti-steering penalty, Apple did receive some positive news from Brussels today. The Commission closed a separate investigation into whether Apple complied with DMA rules regarding user choice for default browsers and the ability to uninstall core iOS apps like Safari. Regulators concluded that Apple had implemented satisfactory changes, reportedly allowing it to avoid fines in this specific instance. This partial compliance contrasts with Meta’s ongoing regulatory challenges surrounding its fundamental data processing and advertising models in Europe.
