London: The European Union leveled its first antitrust penalty against Apple on Monday, fining the U.S. tech giant nearly $2 billion for breaking the bloc’s competition laws by unfairly favoring its own music streaming service over rivals.
Apple muzzled app developers from telling users where they could go to pay for cheaper music subscriptions instead of paying through iOS apps, said the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer. Which was “illegal”.
And it has impacted millions of European consumers who were not able to make a free choice as to where, how and at what price to buy music streaming subscriptions,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said at a news conference in Brussels.
Apple — which said it contests the decision — behaved this way for a decade, resulting in “millions of people who have paid two, three euros more per month for their music streaming service than they would otherwise have had to pay,” she said.
The 1.8 billion-euro fine follows an investigation triggered by a complaint from Swedish streaming service Spotify five years ago. Since then, the EU has drawn up new regulations taking effect this week to prevent tech giants from cornering digital markets.
The EU has led global efforts to crack down on Big Tech companies , including three fines for Google totaling more than 8 billion euros and charging Meta with distorting the online classified ad market.
The fine for the music streaming investigation is kept high because it includes a big extra lump sum to deter Apple from offending again and to act as a deterrent to other tech companies from carrying out similar offenses, the commission said.
Apple hit back at both the commission and Spotify, saying it would appeal the penalty soon.
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