Brussels increases its scrutiny over the operations of big tech companies in the single market. The European Commission has opened an investigation on Monday to determine whether the parent company of Google, Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook’s owner, Meta, comply with the European digital services law. Specifically, it is analyzing whether the first two firms have prioritized their products over rivals and the legality of the new payment or consent system of the social network.
“The Commission opens five investigations for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Law. They refer to Alphabet’s rules on positioning on Google Play and self-preference on Google Search,” said the Vice President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager.
In the case of Apple, “Apple’s positioning in the App Store and on browser choice and default settings, and the payment or consent model of Meta, we suspect that the solutions proposed by the three companies do not fully comply with the Digital Services Law.”
In the case of Apple and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Brussels is analyzing whether they have implemented measures to allow app developers to redirect consumers, free of charge, outside the app store of the two American multinational corporations.
The European Commission has expressed its concerns that both tech companies have not implemented appropriate measures and restrict or limit what developers can do, such as, for example, not imposing additional charges when communicating their offers or closing contracts.
In addition, the European Commission has initiated proceedings against the owner of Google to determine whether its search engine favors the company’s services, such as Google Flights or Google Hotels, over services from rival companies. Brussels has expressed concern that the multinational does not provide fair treatment and discriminates against third-party services, violating digital services regulations.
Regarding Apple, on the other hand, there are suspicions that the company imposes difficulties on consumers when uninstalling any app related to its software, iOS, as well as default settings and configurations for its apps. Additionally, the iPhone owner does not offer users screens to easily select an alternative service, such as a browser or search engine on their iPhones that is not Safari.
In this sense, the European Commission believes that the tech giant could apply formulas that do not prevent users from freely choosing non-Apple services, such as in the search engine screen design.
Finally, against the parent company of Facebook, the European Commission has warned of issues in its payment or consent model. Brussels is investigating whether the newly introduced consent model complies with digital services regulations by combining personal data from different social media platforms.
But these are not the only tech giants that the European Commission is focusing on. Brussels is investigating whether Amazon has favored the sale of its own brand products on its ecommerce platform.
In this regard, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, has explained that the European Commission has engaged in dialogue with digital platforms to help them adapt, “but we are not convinced that the solutions of Alphabet, Apple, and Meta comply with their obligations in favor of a fairer and more open digital space for European citizens and businesses.”
Brussels has issued five document retention orders against Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft to evaluate their compliance with digital services regulations. In addition, the parent company of Facebook has been granted an additional six months to comply with Messenger’s interoperability obligations.
The analysis period by the European Commission will extend over a year. During this process, the European Commission will inform companies of its preliminary analysis of the measures they must take to rectify inconsistencies with EU regulations. In case of non-compliance, the European Commission can impose fines of 10% of the global turnover of the company, which could be increased to 20% if the infringement is repeated. If deficiencies persist, the European Commission could require multinational companies to sell parts of their business or veto their acquisition operations of other companies.
