2025-04-24
Big decisions and fines against Apple and Meta today. The coming hours and days will tell us whether the EU has exacerbated the ongoing trade war with the US. But either way, these decisions are not a win for European consumers or its startups. 🧵
Reuters
The White House says that the EU's €500M fine on Apple and €200M fine on Meta are a “novel form of economic extortion” that the US will not tolerate
The White House said on Wednesday that fines on Apple (AAPL.O) and Meta Platforms (META.O) by the European Union were a …
Big decisions and fines against Apple and Meta today. The coming hours and days will tell us whether the EU has exacerbated the ongoing trade war with the US. But either way, these decisions are not a win for European consumers or its startups. 🧵
European Commission
The European Commission says that Meta's Facebook Marketplace should no longer be designated under the DMA, citing fewer than 10,000 business users in 2024
Today, the European Commission found that Apple breached its anti-steering obligation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) …
2024-03-26
Today's announcement suggests legal challenges in Luxembourg will be the norm. This will mean slow enforcement (years, not months) that will drain significant Commission resources. The Commission has to dot many more i's if it expects a case will end up in court.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
- Investigation of Apple's browser ballot seems oddly familiar (Microsoft & Android cases). - Meta consent or pay investigation looks like a repeat/extension of last year's ECJ ruling. - Amazon's self-preferencing was central to a competition settlement.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
2) One amazing feature of today's announcement is their backward-looking nature and nostalgia for competition enforcement. With one exception, these investigations are basically extensions of existing competition cases. [image]
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
The DMA is being used to (re)litigate old competition cases with the analytical and procedural guardrails removed. Put differently, the DMA increasingly looks like competition law's evil twin, or the bad cop the commission sends when firms don't play ball under competition law. [image]
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
1) Officially, the Commission is merely “opening investigations”. So maybe it ultimately won't find any issues? This is hard to tell. Under competition, launching an investigation became a euphemism for “we are going to sanction you”.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
This is not good news for either proponents of the DMA or the target firms. The regulation was supposed to be “self-executing”, thus avoiding the lengthy litigation that has come to be associated with competition enforcement.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
Last week, the Commission held workshops with the big tech firms to discuss their DMA compliance plans. The Commission clearly is not happy with those discussions because it is now launching a major legal offensive. What does this mean for these firms and their consumers? A🧵
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA probes into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over its “pay or consent” model
Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple's plans, otherwise Apple wouldn't have announced them” — The EU: “Hang on a minute...” https://www.theverge.com/... Jan Penfrat / @ilumi...
2024-03-25
Last week, the Commission held workshops with the big tech firms to discuss their DMA compliance plans. The Commission clearly is not happy with those discussions because it is now launching a major legal offensive. What does this mean for these firms and their consumers? A🧵
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA investigations into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over using user data for ads
The trio of Big Tech giants are the first to face full investigations under bloc's new Digital Markets Act
1) Officially, the Commission is merely “opening investigations”. So maybe it ultimately won't find any issues? This is hard to tell. Under competition, launching an investigation became a euphemism for “we are going to sanction you”.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA investigations into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over using user data for ads
The trio of Big Tech giants are the first to face full investigations under bloc's new Digital Markets Act
This is not good news for either proponents of the DMA or the target firms. The regulation was supposed to be “self-executing”, thus avoiding the lengthy litigation that has come to be associated with competition enforcement.
Financial Times
The EU opens formal DMA investigations into Apple and Google over letting developers “steer” users from their app stores, and Meta over using user data for ads
The trio of Big Tech giants are the first to face full investigations under bloc's new Digital Markets Act
2024-03-18
At Apple's DMA workshop in Brussels today. So far, the big takeaway is that rivals mainly care about the distribution fees that Apple will be charging. => Money matters more than default settings, steering, etc. => For rivals, the DMA was always about paying less. [image]
Reuters
At an EU DMA hearing, an Apple lawyer fended off criticism over DMA compliance; Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, ByteDance, and Microsoft will now have similar hearings
Apple (AAPL.O) on Monday fended off criticism that it has not done enough to open up its closed eco-system as required under …
2023-09-06
We now know which core platform services will have to comply with the DMA's dos and don'ts. Nothing groundbreaking here. We already knew which firms were candidates, and the designated services are largely those you would expect. Here are some implications from today's news 🧵
Bloomberg
The EU lists the 22 services falling under the Digital Markets Act, including TikTok and Facebook, and will assess if Microsoft's services and iMessage qualify
- Tech firms set to challenge EU in digital antitrust clampdown — Apple's App Store, Google Search, Amazon marketplace on list
2023-06-15
Today's announcement portends another decade of Google competition litigation. This is particularly true of the claim that a breakup is necessary—a remedy of this sort is almost unheard of in the EU. Here a couple of preliminary thoughts 🧵 https://twitter.com/...
The Verge
The European Commission issues a preliminary view in its antitrust investigation of Google and suggests the company divest its ad business; Google can now reply
2022-03-10
If the FTC is not happy about this, it can simply: - Say Amazon has not provided enough information (which increases the deadline) - Clear the deal now and subsequently take a second look at it (as with Insta & WhatsApp deals). Though that is problematic https://truthonthemarket.com/ ...
Reuters
Sources: Amazon is expected to win unconditional antitrust approval from the European Commission for its $8.5B MGM acquisition, which was announced in May 2021
Some potential benefits of consolidation include: - Fewer subscriptions to manage - Better price discrimination (bundling) - Scale economies => We should not assume that consolidation of online video distribution is necessarily bad for consumers.
Reuters
Sources: Amazon is expected to win unconditional antitrust approval from the European Commission for its $8.5B MGM acquisition, which was announced in May 2021
2) Amazon's purchase of MGM is a perfect example of the FTC making a huge deal out of benign mergers. Amazon's acquisition of MGM is basically a vertical merger in a market that is not particularly concentrated (though there are likely some overlaps re. content). https://twitter.com/...
Reuters
Sources: Amazon is expected to win unconditional antitrust approval from the European Commission for its $8.5B MGM acquisition, which was announced in May 2021
Against this, the competitive risks seem limited. Critics probably think Amazon may withhold MGM content from rival platforms, but: -This is unlikely to foreclose them -Competition on exclusives is the industry norm and likely benefits consumers -Remedies can address the risks
Reuters
Sources: Amazon is expected to win unconditional antitrust approval from the European Commission for its $8.5B MGM acquisition, which was announced in May 2021
1) Some have claimed the FTC will struggle to review the deal in a timely manner. But this is hardly Amazon's fault. For obvious reasons, the HSR Act imposes review deadlines on enforcers (otherwise they could simply postpone their decision until a deal is effectively dead).
Reuters