‘DMA isn’t helping markets. It’s making it harder to do business in Europe,’ Apple says.
Apple is demanding that the European Commission scrap its landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA), claiming that it is “forcing” the company to make “concerning changes” to how it delivers its services to European users.
The company claims that the DMA has reduced choice for users and introduced unfair competition. “Over time, it’s become clear that the DMA isn’t helping markets. It’s making it harder to do business in Europe,” the company said in a statement yesterday (24 September).
While in a now closed submission to the European Commission, Apple said that the “DMA should be repealed while a more appropriate fit for purpose legislative instrument is put in place”.
Passed in 2022, the DMA cracks down on Big Tech anti-competitive behaviour and aims to level the online digital market space.
The law especially targets designated ‘gatekeeper’ platforms in the EU – namely, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft with rules that, among others, enforce the companies to allow app sideloading and enable third party businesses to access to data.
Non-compliance with the DMA can cost these very large businesses up to 10pc of their annual global revenue.
Apple does not like the ‘gatekeeper’ designation, and has been against the DMA since its early days. CEO Tim Cook called the law a threat to the iPhone’s security and said that it was not in the “best interest of the user” in 2021. And in 2023, Apple, Meta and TikTok’s parent company filed legal challenges against the law.
However, the law remained, and two years later, Apple was fined €500m, and Meta €200m under the legislation. Apple’s half-a-billion-dollar penalty came over EU’s concerns that the company’s rules might prevent customers from exercising choice when accessing services.
Meanwhile US president Donald Trump calls the digital market regulations “overseas extortion”, and recently threatened “substantial tariffs” on countries that “attack” US tech companies.
Apple’s repeated claims
“It’s been more than a year since the Digital Markets Act was implemented. Over that time, it’s become clear that the DMA is leading to a worse experience for Apple users in the EU,” Apple’s statement reads.
The company claims that the DMA requires it to make its features work on non-Apple products and apps before they are allowed to be shared with users in the region.
“If we shared them any sooner, we’d be fined and potentially forced to stop shipping our products in the EU,” the company said.
For example, Apple says that it has not found a secure way to bring the iPhone mirroring feature to non-Apple devices without putting “all the data on a user’s iPhone at risk”. As a result, it says that the feature is unavailable in the EU.
Additionally, the company claims that the DMA introduces more risks when enforcing app sideloading, allowing apps to be downloaded from other market payments, or forcing Apple to enable alternative payment systems that don’t meet the company’s privacy standards.
Apple also says that the DMA’s regulations have allowed pornography and gambling apps to the App Store, which it claims were previously never allowed.
While in another claim, Apple says that third party companies have submitted requests for “the most sensitive data” from iPhones, including the complete content of a user’s notifications, and a full history of Wifi networks a user has joined.
“Despite our concerns with the DMA, teams across Apple are spending thousands of hours to bring new features to the European Union while meeting the law’s requirements. But it’s become clear that we can’t solve every problem the DMA creates,” Apple said.
In a response to the Financial Times, a European Commission spokesperson said that it is normal that companies “need more time to make their products compliant”.
“DMA compliance is not optional, it’s an obligation,” the spokesperson added.
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