The Executive Vice President of the European Commission warned Apple and Meta in an interview with Reuters that the new fee structure and the discrediting of competitors could lead to investigations under the DMA.
In an interview with Reuters, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager warned Apple and Meta that the new fees for their services may violate the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This would prevent users from taking advantage of the DMA, which is intended to provide greater freedom of choice. Compliance with the DMA is monitored by European regulators based on developer feedback.
New fee structure
Apple’s new fee structure imposes a core technology fee of 50 cents per user account per year for large app developers, even if they don’t use Apple’s payment services. This quickly caused criticism from competitors such as Fortnite manufacturer Epic Games and also raised concerns among Vestager.
“There are things that we’re very interested in, such as whether Apple’s new fee structure makes it effectively unattractive to take advantage of the DMA.” We’ll be looking into things like that. she told Reuters in an interview. In addition, Vestager also had her reservations about the new fees from Meta, which previously announced that it would almost halve its monthly subscription costs for Facebook and Instagram from 9.99 euros to 5.99 euros.
Competitors in disrepute
Finally, Vestager warned all companies that discrediting competitors could also lead to investigations. Meta previously warned that interoperability between third-party apps could compromise their security. If third parties connect to WhatsApp or Messenger, they are also responsible for hosting. The company wanted to point out that the use of third-party apps is less safe.