By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Alphabet’s Google and Elon Musk’s X may be the next to face fines from European regulators, as they stay tough on Big Tech despite concerns of retaliatory U.S. tariffs, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
EU antitrust regulators on Wednesday imposed the first penalties under landmark EU legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech, doling out total fines of 700 million euros ($797 million) to Apple and Meta for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and orders to stop anti-competitive practices.
U.S. President Donald Trump has taken issue with the new rules, believing they amount to a tariff on U.S. companies. But EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera dismissed fears that she may cave to U.S. pressure and soften enforcement of the rules.
“Apple and Meta have fallen short of compliance with the DMA by implementing measures that reinforce the dependence of business users and consumers on their platforms,” Ribera said in a statement on Wednesday. “All companies operating in the EU must follow our laws and respect European values,” she said.
The DMA sets out a list of dos and don’ts for tech giants to make it easier for people to move between competing online services like social media platforms, internet browsers and app stores and for smaller rivals to compete.
Imposing the fines shows that the European Commission has “bite” despite Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on EU countries that fine U.S. companies, said one senior Commission official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
FOCUS ON COMPLIANCE OVER SANCTIONS
Still, the size of the fines is modest compared to the eye-popping penalties handed out by Ribera’s predecessor Margrethe Vestager in previous years. Commission sources say this is due to the short period of the breaches, a focus on compliance rather than sanctions and the Trump effect.
That leaves a question mark over whether Europe’s future approach to regulating Big Tech could yet be impacted by political factors, the sources say.#
The litmus test for Ribera will be whether she goes ahead in the coming months with an order forcing Google to sell part of its lucrative adtech business to address concerns that it may be favouring its own advertising services in a case dating from 2021, according to EU lawmakers and consumer organisations worried about weakening EU competition enforcement.
It would be the first time that the EU watchdog issues such an order in an antitrust case, underlining its deep concerns about Google’s market power, according to Commission sources. Even Microsoft in its two decade-long antitrust battle with the Commission was spared such a drastic step.
