The European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes new rules on tech giants like Facebook, Apple, and Google, including content moderation, user privacy, and transparency, with potential fines of up to 6% of their global turnover for non-compliance.
Starting Friday, large tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Snapchat, and TikTok must comply with new European laws that regulate social media moderation, targeted advertising, and counterfeit goods, among other areas; the laws aim to address concerns about misinformation, mental health, algorithmic content, transparency, and illegal products, with potential fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue for non-compliance.
Apple and Microsoft are arguing with the European Union over the designation of their services, iMessage and Bing, as "gatekeepers" under new EU legislation aimed at regulating Big Tech.
Apple's App Store, Safari browser, and iOS operating system have been designated as "gatekeepers" in the European Union, requiring adherence to strict new regulations aimed at curbing the power of major tech companies.
Tech giants like Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft must comply with new regulations set by the European Commission (EC) to allow users to remove preloaded apps and use alternative options, in order to maintain competition in the market or face penalties of up to 10% of their global turnover.
The EU has designated six tech giants, including Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, as "gatekeepers" subject to the Digital Market Act, aiming to promote fairness, competition, and transparency in core digital services. This regulation could have a wide-ranging impact on Apple's services business, potentially forcing changes to the App Store's revenue share model, increasing competition and pricing pressure for Apple Music and iCloud, and altering revenue sharing agreements with third-party subscriptions on iOS. The DMA threatens to weaken Apple's control and profitability across its services segment.
The European Union has announced stricter regulations for U.S. tech giants, including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and ByteDance, but the aim is to avoid forced breakups of these large businesses.
Chinese-owned social media app TikTok has been fined €345 million ($421 million) by the Irish Data Protection Commission for violating children's privacy laws in Europe, specifically by making underage users' accounts publicly accessible by default and failing to adequately address the risk of under-13 users accessing the platform. This is the largest-ever privacy fine for TikTok and the fifth-largest fine imposed on any tech company under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
