Apple affirms compliance with EU Digital Markets Act

Apple responds to criticism that it had not sufficiently opened its closed ecosystem, as mandated by the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, stating that it has indeed adhered to the legislation

On Monday, Apple dismissed criticism that it had not done enough to open up its closed eco-system as required under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), saying it had complied with the landmark legislation.

The DMA sets out a list of obligations and prohibitions for Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, TikTok owner ByteDance, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft, which the six companies had to abide by on March 7.

In recent weeks, Apple has announced a series of changes, from allowing app developers to distribute their iPhone apps directly to consumers instead of through Apple’s App Store to letting developers distribute their apps to users in the European Union outside of the App Store.

The company told app developers, business users, and rivals at a daylong hearing organized by the European Commission that it has redesigned its systems to comply with the DMA.

“We were guided first and foremost by ensuring we complied with the law. Second, we did it in a way consistent with our values and the language we’ve developed with our users over a very long period. And we think we’ve accomplished that,” Apple’s lawyer Kyle Andeer told the hearing.

“And I think we’re focused on it from a user perspective. Now, it’s not to say that we’re not focused on developers’ impact, but I think from our perspective first and foremost, we’ll be tracking very carefully what the impact of all of these different changes is on the user experience that we’ve delivered to our customers for 15, 16 years through the iPhone.”

Meta will present its compliance efforts at a separate hearing on Tuesday, Amazon on Wednesday, Alphabet on Thursday, ByteDance on Friday, and Microsoft next Tuesday.

Companies that fail to comply with the DMA risk investigations can be fined up to 10% of their global annual turnover. 

Source: Reuters

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