The European Union has announced investigations into tech firms Alphabet (which owns Google), Apple and Meta over uncompetitive practices, the BBC reports.
The three firms are being investigated for potential breaches of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) introduced in 2022. The probe is expected to take about a year.
According to the BBC, if they are found to have broken the rules, the firms could face huge fines of up to 10% of their annual turnover.
The investigations were announced yesterday by EU antitrust boss Margrethe Vestager and industry head Thierry Breton.
The EU says it believes Apple and Alphabet are limiting ‘anti-steering’ by making it difficult for apps to tell users about ways to pay less for their services outside of using app stores’ own payment methods.
It is also looking into whether Meta breached European rules by asking people to pay to avoid their data being used for adverts.
Breton said this had ‘forced millions of users across Europe into a binary choice: pay or consent’.
Vestager is quoted as saying: ‘We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA. We will now investigate the companies’ compliance with the DMA, to ensure open and contestable digital markets in Europe.’
The move comes three weeks after the EU fined Apple €1.8bn for breaking competition laws over music streaming.