European Union antitrust regulators on Wednesday issued fresh warnings to Apple and Google over potential violations of their strict digital rules – a move that will likely escalate tensions between the EU and President Trump.
The European Commission, the EU’s competition watchdog, told Google it could face major fines for treating its own in-house services “more favorably” than rivals within its search results and for restricting rival developers from steering users away from its “Play” Android app store.
Separately, the commission warned Tim Cook’s Apple that it must give rival developers greater access to iOS, the operating system used on its iPhones, in order to improve “interoperability” and comply with the law. Apple has argued doing so would put user privacy at risk.
Both companies are being targeted under Europe’s Digital Markets Act, which applies to seven companies determined to be the internet’s “gatekeepers” – Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Booking.com, TikTok parent ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft. Firms can be fined by up to 10% of their global revenue – potentially amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
“Let me be clear: Our main focus is creating a culture of compliance with the Digital Markets Act,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.
The EU’s crackdown on US tech firms has emerged as a key front in its ongoing trade dispute with Trump, who has threatened to impose major tariffs against EU members.
The Post reached out to the Trump administration for comment.
Trump, who has likened the EU’s fines to “overseas extortion,” issued a memo last month noting that his administration will “consider responsive actions like tariffs to combat the digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”
“President Trump will not allow foreign governments to appropriate America’s tax base for their own benefit,” the White House said at the time.
For now, only the commission’s warning toward Google comes with the threat of a fine.
Still, the search giant blasted the EU’s latest action in a blog post, writing that it increases “the risk of an even worse experience for Europeans.”
“The DMA is designed to regulate large platforms like Google, Apple and Meta, and boost competition, but in reality, it is having the opposite effect by hurting European businesses and consumers,” Google said.
Apple also railed against the regulators.
“Today’s decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules,” Apple said in a statement.
“It’s bad for our products and for our European users. We will continue to work with the European Commission to help them understand our concerns on behalf of our users,” the company added.
Last month, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan demanded a briefing from Ribera on how the EU plans to enforce the Digital Markets Act.
Jordan pointed out that six of the seven “gatekeepers” subject to the law are American-owned.
“These severe fines appear to have two goals: to compel businesses to follow European standards worldwide, and as a European tax on American companies,” Jordan said in a letter.
