Semafor Signals
EU charges Apple with violating bloc rules on Big Tech
Insights from The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, and AI News
The News
The European Commission has charged Apple with violating the bloc’s Digital Markets Act on Monday — the first time a tech company has been charged under the Act.
The Commission charged that Apple’s App Store terms prevent app developers from “communicating freely” with their own users — a breach of the DMA.
If the Commission decides against Apple, the company could be fined up to 10% of its global revenue. Apple can make changes to the terms to address the charges and avoid a fine. The Commission has until March to make a final call.
Separately, the EU opened another investigation into Apple’s fees for third-party app developers and app stores.
SIGNALS
Apple’s ongoing woes could see the company shift strategy
Apple is facing a “watershed moment” in two of its key markets after years of avoiding major antitrust action, The Financial Times wrote in March — that month, the US alleged Apple had monopolized the smartphone market in a landmark lawsuit, and the EU fined the company $1.8 billion for breaking competition laws over music streaming. Apple will have to change the way it operates, regardless of the outcomes of the cases, Bloomberg’s tech correspondent argued. Just as Microsoft has successfully rebounded from its own struggles with regulators by becoming more open, so too might Apple similarly grow and innovate away from any anti-competitive practices, a Forbes columnist argued.
Europeans may be slow to get latest US tech due to regulation
Apple’s decision to delay the rollout of three new artificial intelligence features to European markets until at earliest 2025 – citing the DMA as the reason — is “likely a calculated move” that allows the company to appear responsible without losing its competitive edge, a tech journalist wrote in AI News. The EU, meanwhile, has succeeded in forcing tech giants to pause and, potentially, create more user-focused and privacy-aware products — but at the risk of falling behind in the global push for AI technology.
