As President Donald Trump threatens punishing tariffs in Europe, there are more antitrust woes for Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
On Wednesday, the EU said Google violated the Digital Markets Act (DCA), and ordered Apple to change a number of iOS features to comply with the landmark law.
European regulators claim Google Search favored parent company Alphabet’s services over rival ones, a practice known as “self-preferencing,” that is forbidden by the DMA. The EU also alleged Google Play, the company’s mobile app store, prevented app developers from easily steering consumers to alternative brands.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said its findings about Google are preliminary, and it has yet to advise any business practice modifications.
Google countered the EU charges, saying it has made changes to search results to adhere to the DMA that has led to higher costs for consumers, and that the latest EU request would further hurt consumers and businesses.
“The Commission’s findings require us to make even more changes to how we show certain types of Search results, which would make it harder for people to find what they are looking for and reduce traffic to European businesses. This is, quite simply, misguided,” Oliver Bethell, Google’s EMEA director for competition, said in a blog post.
The EU’s suggestions to Apple, meanwhile, cover nine “connectivity features” in iOS that include iPhone’s near field communication chip, which allows users to make in-store payments, and peer-to-peer WiFi connections between mobile devices.
Apple said the proposed moves “wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules.”
“It’s bad for our products and for our European users,” Apple added in its statement. “We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users.”
Enacted in 2022, DMA is intended to remove barriers to competition on the Continent from tech giants like Google, Apple, Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Meta Platforms Inc. While Apple has held off an AI push in Europe, Meta on Thursday said its Meta AI virtual assistant is being rolled out in Europe with limited features compared to the U.S. version.
DMA has drawn the ire from Big Tech, and prompted Vice President JD Vance in February to rail against “excessive” European regulation in a keynote speech at a major AI conference in Paris. [In a subsequent speech in Washington, D.C., this week, Vance blasted globalization and criticized attempts at regulation in the U.S. “We got lazy, we over-regulated our industries instead of supporting them … we made it way too hard to build things and invest things in the United States,” Vance said.]
While some European authorities have hinted at heeding Vance’s warning since his speech, tensions have escalated against a geopolitical backdrop in which President Trump vowed to levy tariffs against the European bloc for alleged “overseas extortion” of Big Tech.
The EU, in response, has reportedly threatened to use a new “anti-coercion” instrument that would let the bloc take action in cases of economic coercion against EU member states.
