Last night, Apple issued its most forceful rebuttal yet to Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which may force it to open up its ecosystem. Today, the European Commission shot back. Here are the details.
A bit of background
For the past few years, Europe has been developing the DMA, which is a set of legislation that will compel “gatekeepers” to open up their platforms and ecosystems, in an attempt to promote a more level playing field for competitiveness.
When it comes specifically to Apple, the DMA has already compelled Apple to allow the distribution of iOS and iPadOS apps on alternative marketplaces, including the web, allow alternative browser engines, let users choose their default browser, expand access to NFC capabilities, and more.
Apple has been fighting tooth and nail against most, if not all, of these changes. After multiple back-and-forth rounds of negotiations, and a pending €500M fine, right now the EU is collecting feedback from app developers and other interested parties to decide whether Apple is compliant with the current set of rules.
Still, further changes are scheduled to take effect in the near future, including one that would require Apple to grant third-party hardware the same level of integration as the Apple Watch and AirPods. Apple argued again yesterday that this would either be technically unfeasible or seriously undermine user privacy.
The company also went as far as to call for the repeal of the DMA, and pointed to the following as an example of the difficulties posed by the forthcoming complementary interoperability rules:
“Live Translation with AirPods uses Apple Intelligence to let Apple users communicate across languages. Bringing a sophisticated feature like this to other devices creates challenges that take time to solve. For example, we designed Live Translation so that our users’ conversations stay private — they’re processed on device and are never accessible to Apple — and our teams are doing additional engineering work to make sure they won’t be exposed to other companies or developers either.”
Apple also pointed to recent software delays for EU users as a direct consequence of the DMA, and argued that the bloc’s antitrust legislation is actually achieving the opposite of its intended goals, with fewer choices, less differentiation, and unfair competition.
You can read more about Apple’s recent comments here.
The EU bites back
Following Apple’s scathing pushback, the European Commission wasn’t particularly impressed, and told POLITICO that it was “not surprised” by the move.
Here’s the European Commission’s spokesperson Thomas Regnier:
“Apple has simply contested every little bit of the DMA [Digital Markets Act] since its entry into application. (…) This undermines the company’s narrative of wanting to be fully cooperative with the Commission.”
When mentioning that Apple had “snubbed” the EC’s attempt to engage in discussions about DMA compliance, Regnier had this to say:
“Results of this positive engagement? After two months, Apple came back and asked us to scrap everything. (…) We of course fully get companies want to defend their profits at all costs, but that’s not what the DMA is about.”
In a separate statement to French news channel France24, Regnier also said the commission has “‘absolutely no intention’ to abandon the law.”
Apple’s statements yesterday were its strongest yet against the DMA, and they indicate that the company sees very few avenues in which it may actually be able to steer clear of the new rules.
What’s your take on the DMA? Let us know in the comments.
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