Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

On April 22, 2025, the European Commission announced its first non-compliance decisions under the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”). In these decisions, the European Commission fined Apple EUR 500 million and Meta EUR 200 million for non-compliance with their obligations under the DMA.

According to the European Commission, Apple failed to meet its obligation to open its system to alternatives to the Apple App Store due to technical and commercial restrictions it imposed on developers. As such, in addition to the fine, the European Commission ordered Apple to remove the technical and commercial restrictions limiting developers from steering users to alternatives to the Apple App Store.

Regarding Meta, the European Commission considered that by offering a binary “consent or pay” model for Facebook and Instagram between March 2024 (when the DMA obligations became legally binding) and November 2024, Meta had infringed the DMA’s rule requiring gatekeepers to seek users’ consent for combining their personal data between services. Users who do not consent must have access to a less personalized but equivalent alternative. In November 2024, Meta introduced a different version of the free personalized ads model, offering a new option that uses less personal data to display advertisements. The European Commission is currently assessing the compatibility of Meta’s new “consent or pay” model with the DMA.

Read the Press Release.