European regulators crack down on Big Tech

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March 4 (Reuters) – European regulators have launched a series of probes against Big Tech. In the latest one, Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab received a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for preventing Spotify (SPOT.N), opens new tab and other music streaming services from informing users of payment options outside its App Store.

Here are some of the actions taken by European watchdogs to keep a tab on big technology companies:

EUROPEAN UNION

Brussels fined Apple 1.84 billion euros ($2 billion) on March 4, the iPhone maker’s first ever EU antitrust penalty, following a 2019 complaint from Spotify. Apple criticised the EU decision, saying it would challenge it in court.

Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab unit Google’s 2.42-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) EU antitrust fine should be upheld by Europe’s top court, an adviser to the court said on Jan. 11. The European Commission fined the company in 2017 for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.

EU antitrust regulators said in January Microsoft’s investment of over $10 billion in ChatGPT maker OpenAI may be subject to EU merger rules, following a similar warning from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in December.

Google may have to sell part of its lucrative adtech business to address concerns about anti-competitive practices, EU regulators said in June. Google criticised a potential order in December, saying it was disproportionate and not right for its advertising partners.

In November, EU antitrust regulators asked Microsoft’s (MSFT.O), opens new tab rivals whether the U.S. software giant’s proposal to unbundle its chat and video app Teams from its Office product is sufficient to address their concerns, after the European Commission launched an investigation into its Office and Teams tie-up in July.

In September, the EU picked out 22 so-called “gatekeeper” services run by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok-owner ByteDance, giving them six months to comply with the provisions of its wide-ranging Digital Markets Act (DMA)

Meta Platforms and ByteDance’s TikTok both appealed against the “gatekeeper” status in November, with the latter losing a bid to suspend its designation in February.

BRITAIN

Britain’s media regulator on Oct. 5 asked the country’s antitrust authority CMA to investigate Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the UK cloud market, citing features that made it more difficult for businesses to switch or mix and match cloud providers. CMA will complete its investigation by April 2025.

FRANCE

The French competition authority raided Nvidia’s (NVDA.O), opens new tab local offices in September, the Wall Street Journal reported. The watchdog disclosed the raid on Sept. 27, but did not name the company beyond saying it was in the “graphics cards sector”.

Nvidia declined to comment.

The antitrust authority in July said Apple may have violated regulations related to the utilisation of iPhone user data in advertising and could potentially misuse its dominant market position by imposing biased, unclear, and unfair conditions to handle user data.

The country’s privacy watchdog said in July it was aware of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Worldcoin crypto project and that the legality of its biometric data collection “seems questionable as do the conditions for storing biometric data”.

GERMANY

Google has agreed to change its user data practices to end a German antitrust investigation aimed at curbing its data-driven market power, the German cartel office said on Oct. 5. Google’s commitments will give users more choice on how their data is used across the company’s platforms, the regulator said.

A German data watchdog has been investigating Worldcoin since late 2022. Worldcoin, which launched in July 2023, requires users to give their iris scans in exchange for a digital ID and, in some countries, free cryptocurrency.

ITALY

Italy’s antitrust agency said in May it had opened a probe into Apple for alleged abuse of its dominant position in the apps market.

In April, the watchdog took measures against Meta over an alleged abuse of its position in the country, in a probe involving the rights to music posted on the group’s platforms.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot was temporarily banned in Italy in March over concerns by the national data protection authority, but was made available to users again in April.

The antitrust authority said in March it had opened an investigation into TikTok for allegedly breaching its rules by allowing the publication of “dangerous content” inciting suicide, self-harm and poor nutrition.

NETHERLANDS

The Dutch competition regulator on Oct. 2 said it had rejected Apple’s objections against fines of 50 million euros it had given the company over failure to comply with regulations aimed at limiting the dominant position of Apple’s App Store. Apple will appeal the decision in Dutch courts.

($1 = 0.9458 euros)

Compiled by Alessandro Parodi, Victor Goury-Laffont, Olivier Cherfan, Paolo Laudani and Enrico Sciacovelli in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Bernadette Baum