The European Commission fined Apple €500m for preventing developers from communicating freely with consumers, and Meta €200m for its pay-or-consent advertising model, under the Digital Markets Act1. Separately, X (formerly Twitter) received a €120m fine under the Digital Services Act for deceptive verification practices, opaque advertising, and blocking researcher data access2. The cumulative total: €820m.
The Apple fine targeted the company's App Store anti-steering rules, which prevented app developers from telling users about cheaper purchasing options outside the App Store. Meta's fine addressed a consent mechanism that forced European users to either pay for an ad-free experience or accept personalised tracking. Both cases concerned practices the companies had argued were compliant with the DMA's requirements.
The fines are large but survivable for companies of this scale. Apple's annual revenue exceeds $380bn. The enforcement significance is procedural: these are the first substantial DMA penalties, and they confirm that the Commission will use financial sanctions rather than relying on compliance deadlines and dialogue. The potential fine exposure across all designated gatekeepers exceeds €100bn if the Commission calculates penalties at the maximum 10% of global turnover. That ceiling gives Brussels considerable leverage in ongoing and future investigations.
