Apple, Appealing €500M DMA Fine, Contends It Made a Series of Proposals to the European Commission Throughout 2024 but Did Not Receive Feedback

Jacob Parry, reporting last week for Politico:

“We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for,” said Apple spokesperson Emma Wilson. “Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way.”

These public comments echo concerns the company raised directly with the Commission.

According to correspondence seen by Politico, Apple offered last summer to drop its rules on how app developers can communicate with users, but was told by the Commission to hold off, pending feedback from developers.

By late September and following a round of consultations with Apple critics like Spotify, Match Group and Epic Games, executives at the U.S.-based firm began worrying that a lack of feedback from the Commission meant it was teeing up a potential fine and noncompliance decision.

In an October 2024 letter sent to senior officials in DG Connect and DG Competition, and seen by Politico, an Apple executive complained that the Commission’s case teams had “made clear” that then-Commissioner Margrethe Vestager intended to issue a decision with a “potentially significant fine.”

Basically, it sounds like the European Commission worked backwards to fining Apple last year in a similar way to how Apple worked backwards to arrive at a 27 percent commission on web transactions initiated in apps from the App Store.

★ Thursday, 15 May 2025