The European Commission has launched investigations against Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta – Kommersant

The European Commission has launched investigations against Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta – Kommersant

[ad_1]

European Commission announced about the initiation of investigations against several American corporations at once for possible violations of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). In particular, the regulator will study the activities of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple and Meta (recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation).

The DMA came into full force across the EU on 6 March. The regulator believes that the corporations named in this law as digital market controllers are not complying with the requirements of the DMA.

In particular, the European Commission will check whether Alphabet and Apple restrict application developers from directing users to resources outside the application stores of these two companies – Google Play and the App Store. In addition, the regulator will check whether Alphabet is promoting its own services illegally through the Google search engine, primarily by providing links to its own services in search results. In the case of Apple, the European Commission will also check whether the corporation provides users with the ability to easily unsubscribe from key company services without losing rights compared to other users, easily change key settings on iOS, and whether the company gives users the initial choice of Internet browser and search engine on iPhone.

Finally, the regulator began investigating Meta over its “pay or opt-in” model, which involves paying for access to the corporation’s services if users do not want to provide their data for targeted advertising. The regulator believes that such a policy does not actually give users any choice and may violate EU law.

The European Commission also announced that it has begun collecting information about two more possible violations of the DMA by American corporations. Thus, Amazon may give preference to goods of its own brand in the Amazon store, the regulator believes. Finally, the European Commission intends to take a closer look at Apple’s new terms regarding third-party app stores, suggesting that the new US corporate tax system does not comply with the requirements of the DMA.

Read more about the Digital Markets Act in the material “The EU has become the forefront of regulating high-tech giants”.

Kirill Sarkhanyants

[ad_2]

Source link