Apple won’t face anti-steering EU fine if it misses deadline
Apple may miss the the European Union’s looming App Store anti-steering compliance deadline enforced by the Digital Markets Act — but it won’t face automatic fines if it does.
It looks like both Apple and Meta are off the hook for Digital Markets Act (DMA) compliance — for now. Both tech giants won’t be required to pay their multi-million dollar fines to the European Union, even if they should miss their compliance requirement.
In April, the European Commission fined Apple 500 million euros, an amount that worked out to roughly $570 million at the time. While it eventually gave Apple a grace period to bring its practices in line with the Digital Markets Act, it threatened to tack on extra fines if it did not comply by the June 26 deadline.
Now, as the clock runs out, the European Commission has decided it won’t immediately impose the fines on Apple and Meta. According to Euronewsa spokesperson claims that the penalties will not be applied automatically, but rather after the Commission conducts a preliminary analysis and shares its findings with the companies.
This specific battle of the ongoing war between Big Tech and the EU started in April. The commission claimed that Apple had prevented developers from directing users to alternative offers outside of its platform, a practice known as anti-steering.
Meta had also been fined 200 million euros. It was discovered that the company forced users to either consent to the use of their data for targeted advertising or pay for an ad-free subscription.
The Commission, however, was quick to suspend the fines after the Trump Administration threatened retaliation. Instead, it gave the offenders until June 26 to comply.
The issue is very similar to the anti-steering suit spawned by the Fortnite developer’s willful violation of App Store policies. In the initial ruling, the judge found that Apple had every right to kick Epic off the App Store, but violated a California law that mandated that vendors like the App Store allow developers to point to payments outside the app.
Apple dragged its feet with compliance. After a series of backs-and-forths, she ordered that Apple come back in compliance with her order — and for some reason approve Epic’s submission of Fortnite on the App Store.
Apple is appealing, of course, but lost a bid to stop compliance actions while the appeal winds its way through the courts.
We are certain that “anti-steering” will continue to be a frequent topic for at least the next year.
