A Google começou a alterar os resultados de pesquisa na Europa para cumprir com o DMA da UE, mas avisa que a experiência dos utilizadores vai piorar, e os custos para empresas locais vão subir.
The post Google admite piorar a pesquisa na Europa para cumprir lei antitrust da UE appeared first on Tek Notícias.
Mark Gurman (tweet, John Gruber, Mastodon, 9To5Mac):
The Schiller exit is a bit more notable. Unlike Maestri, he still had a real job: The veteran executive ran the App Store and Apple Events. The App Store portion alone is no joke. It generates an estimated $30 billion a year and can be very challenging to manage. Apple’s app marketplace is loved by many consumers, but often criticized by developers and subjected to increasingly onerous regulations. It was a busy, all-encompassing gig and nowhere near a semiretirement.
[…]
But there’s a bit more to the story, I’m told. Ternus and services chief Eddy Cue want to make even more money from the App Store and figure out ways to raise margins and squeeze additional recurring revenue from the platform. Schiller, on the other hand, seems to believe that such moves will only further irk developers and governments. While there was no internal blowup or anything like that, it’s something he wanted no part of.
“Product guy” dreams about margins, forgets that people buy Apple hardware because of the software.
Apple admitted during its July earnings call that regulatory changes have started to weigh on its Services growth. Apple reported services revenue of $30.7 billion for the June quarter, a record for the period but short of the $31.4 billion that analysts expected.
The hardware guys treating third-party developers like they do their suppliers has stifled Apple’s software platforms
I thought that perhaps with the move to John Ternus as CEO, it could also be an obvious time to revisit such policies. But I hadn’t considered that Apple could actually be in favor of making them more onerous.
See also: Mario Guzmán and Indie Simulator.
Previously:
Apple is facing a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) London lawsuit brought on behalf of app developers over its app tracking rules, with the iPhone maker accused of abusing its power to unfairly impose greater restrictions on third parties.
[…]
Lawyers bringing the new lawsuit against Apple, though, say the feature imposed stricter requirements on third-party app developers than on Apple’s own services, giving its advertising ecosystem a competitive advantage.
Via Ben Lovejoy:
The latest lawsuit has an interesting twist: it’s being brought by Ann Pope, who was previously a senior official with the regulator behind today’s case.
The company told Reuters it was “bound by the exact same requirements as all developers.”
However, regulators across Europe including in France, Italy and Poland have investigated ATT. Germany’s competition regulator, the Federal Cartel Office, last month determined that Apple was favoring its own apps over those from external developers.
The EU is saying “you’re big enough that you have to treat your other business models like third parties” and Apple replies with “but we know we’re solid, so that makes no sense!”
Previously:
Apple has agreed to make changes to its App Tracking Transparency feature in Germany, according to the country’s competition regulator.
[…]
In Germany, Apple has agreed to remove “possibly discouraging symbols and wording” from the App Tracking Transparency prompt, the regulator said. Apps will also be “given more scope to explain to users what significance personalized advertising has for their offering and their business model,” and the “freedom to combine the consent request required by Apple with the consent requests required under data protection law.”
The FCO’s objection appears to be that Apple’s existing prompt is making app tracking sound scarier than it really is. The iPhone maker will make eight changes in order to address this – including removal of the word “track.”
The regulator helpfully offers an illustration of the differences between these prompts on the fourth page of its FAQs (PDF) about the case. There are many things they say could be deterrents in the App Tracking Transparency dialog, and I do not think Apple would deny that they are suggesting that users opt out of tracking. The definition of “tracking” Apple uses is self-serving, which would not matter so much if it did not also have a parallel desire to grow its advertising business.
[…]
A particularly damning finding in that comparison, to my eyes, is the way Apple puts “Ask App Not to Track” as the topmost button in the App Tracking Transparency dialog, but puts the option to “Turn Off Personalised Ads” at the bottom of it its own advertising prompt.
Previously:
A US federal judge has sided with Google, ruling that the company will not have to sell its online advertising exchange (previously known as AdX). The US Department of Justice (DOJ) sought this remedy in the long-running ad tech antitrust trial, which Google lost in 2025. However, the remedies imposed upon Google for that loss are shaping up to be minimal.
[…]
While divesting the ad exchange would have been the most serious penalty, the government also asked for fines and court-ordered changes to Google’s business practices. It’s likely that the DOJ will get a lot of that, but we don’t know the specifics yet. Judge Leonie Brinkema has sealed the order for 14 days, giving the parties a chance to request redactions.
[…]
After all these years of hearings, appeals, and decisions, Google’s market power will remain largely unchanged going forward.
Previously:
The settlement between Google and Epic that aimed to put to rest the companies’ long-running antitrust battle is being withdrawn, and that means third-party app stores are coming to the Play Store.
[…]
While Apple suffered little penalty in its Epic case, Google was tripped up by its anti-competitive management of the supposedly open Android ecosystem. Google used its market position to discourage device makers from promoting or pre-loading non-Google app stores and attempted to hide that conduct. The remedies set by Judge James Donato included lower fees, mirroring Google Play apps in other stores, and most vitally, placement of alternative app stores in Google Play.
[…]
Google and Epic were set to return to court on July 16 to argue in favor of the settlement. However, the writing may have been on the wall. In a recent expert analysis provided to the court, MIT economics professor Nancy Rose noted that the settlement was “unlikely to enable Google Play’s potential competitors to overcome their long-standing network-effect disadvantage in a timely manner.”
[…]
Under the terms of Judge Donato’s original injunction, these stores will have access to the full catalog of Google Play apps by default. […] Google will also require approved stores to block malware, respect intellectual property, and include mechanisms to update and uninstall apps.
My guess is that all the big app developers will opt out of this. Games, though, maybe not?
Previously:
A US federal judge has sided with Google, ruling that the company will not have to sell its online advertising exchange (previously known as AdX). The US Department of Justice (DOJ) sought this remedy in the long-running ad tech antitrust trial, which Google lost in 2025. However, the remedies imposed upon Google for that loss are shaping up to be minimal.
In this case, the DOJ and a coalition of states sought to prove that Google leveraged its immense market power in online display ads to reduce the reach of competitors. Government lawyers argued that Google had "rigged" ad auctions to give itself an advantage. While the court agreed that Google illegally locked publishers into using its exchange, it did not agree that Google had broken the law when it came to the tools used by advertisers.
Despite the mixed ruling, the DOJ argued during the remedy phase that forcing Google to sell its ad exchange, which facilitates connections between ad buyers and sellers, was the best way to level the playing field. But that won't happen. While the ad exchange represents a relatively small part of Google's revenue, forcing the company to sell may have sent ripple effects through the rest of its ad business. It would also have been a powerful message to Big Tech firms, which have successfully knocked back a recent wave of antitrust cases.
© Ryan Whitwam
Apple (developer, details, Hacker News, TechCrunch, The Verge, 9To5Mac):
These changes resolve Apple’s disagreements with the Commission over business terms and alternative distribution. They also reduce complexity by moving every developer that distributes apps in the EU to a single set of business terms.
[…]
The Core Technology Fee, a per-install fee for developers that achieve extraordinary scale, will be replaced by the Core Technology Commission, a simple 5 percent commission on digital transactions in apps distributed outside the App Store. The new terms also eliminate the initial acquisition fee and store services fee.
[…]
Under the updated terms, developers can now offer Apple In-App Purchase alongside alternative payment options, which had not previously been permitted in the EU.
[…]
Apple is also expanding who is eligible to operate an alternative app marketplace or distribute apps via the web in the EU.
[…]
Apple will continue to require every alternatively distributed app to go through Notarization[…]
Apple will charge a 26% fee for apps distributed through the App Store that use in-app purchase.
[…]
Apps in the App Store that use in-app alternative payment processing will pay 20%.
[…]
Apps that link to a website purchase option will pay 15%.
Apps using Web Distribution or App Marketplaces would pay the 5% CTC (and report transactions). I like that the new terms are simpler and that the fees are slightly lower, but it seems like the EU got tricked or surrendered here.
This is bonkers, I can’t believe the EU Commission agreed to it. The main issue that the DMA was about still remains: Apple retains ultimate control over app developers’ dealings with users.
The status quo that the EU should have pushed for, and which Article 6(7) of the DMA requires, is one where a developer can distribute iOS apps to users without ever entering into any contractual relationship with Apple.
All in all, still extremely anti-consumer. If I can download and run arbitrary code on my Mac--even if I have to jump through scary warnings--why should I not be able to do so on my phone? Why would one computing platform be different from the other?
However, while Apple hopes it will be allowed to charge these lower commissions, it has admitted in a new regulatory filing that it may not be allowed to charge any commission at all on purchases made through third-party app stores and other external platforms.
The commission Apple earns from the App Store is shrinking in markets where it has been forced to relax its grip on in-app purchases, based on new analytics data.
Previously:
Update (2026-08-20): M.G. Siegler:
Notably, this isn’t a proposal, it’s the announcement of actual changes that Apple will implement (starting October 1) after “close collaboration” with the EC. And lest we think Apple is overplaying that last aspect, that group gave a statement to Bloomberg backing up the assertion[…]
[…]
This feels like mainly a way to keep the all-important big gaming fees – which make up most of in-app payments, and as such, most App Store fees – mostly intact.
[…]
It sure looks like Apple knew this EU deal was coming down the pike and that the bloc agreeing to their terms would bolster the case that these are “fair”. The US judge still gets to decide that, and Epic has already pushed back as Apple seeks to negotiate directly. One big reason for pushing? Epic wants to ensure any changes Apple tries to negotiate be put in place for all developers.
The European Commission has since confirmed that it approves of Apple’s changes to its App Store policies, giving a statement to the Irish Independent[…]
Epic Games, a longstanding critic of Apple’s App Store practices, called the scheme “junk fees,” adding that the plan did “nothing to open up the mobile app ecosystem to competition, as required by Digital Markets Act.”
“The law makes it clear that Apple must allow developers to offer link outs to the web for purchases ‘free of charge’ and has to allow ‘effective use’ of competing stores,” the company wrote.
This changes effectively nothing I care about and continues to be completely laughable.
Apple still in complete control over what is allowed in any iOS app.
It’s so weird to me that the regulation that is explicitly against gatekeepers still allows Apple to be the gatekeeper.
I hope this isn’t the end of DMA. Apple taking a cut of out-of-store apps revenue makes as much sense as app developers taking a cut of iPhone revenue.
[…]
And also I still want to live in a world where anyone can write a program and run it on the devices they own and send it to friends, without having to pay $100/year of developer account and do the whole notarization thing (which considering the amount of scam in the app store we know is pretty useless in terms of security). Not everybody is a professional programmer, some people are just doing programming as a hobby, some are also young people that don’t even own a credit card yet.
I have refused to sign any of Apple’s EU DMA agreements thus far, because I think they are illegal, and they have been optional.
I still think their new terms are illegal — they don’t meet the minimum requirements of the DMA, and will not be approved by stakeholders — but they are no longer optional, so the choice now becomes accept the updated developer agreement or stop being a developer.
Update (2026-08-21): John Gruber:
This is a near-total victory for Apple.
[…]
Thanks to the DMA’s sprawling scope, complexity, and overreach, Apple came out of this conceding only 4 percent of the App Store’s 30 percent commission, and no reduction at all to the 15 percent for subscriptions after the first year.
Update (2026-08-24): Jesper:
The CTC is preferable to the CTF in much the same way that a fire burning down your kitchen is preferable to a fire burning down your entire house.
[…]
The Digital Markets Act was introduced to ensure that sideloading would be an available alternative, to essentially force open platforms that have been closed. Debates about the wisdom of this notwithstanding, in the biggest case, and up until recent developments in Android app marketplace governance also only case, it has failed to deliver the promises that were the entire point of the law.
Update (2026-08-25): John Gruber (Mastodon):
I’m sure some of you think I’m all wet in my argument that the point of the DMA was merely to impose ongoing bureaucratic complexity. But my view jibes with the reality of how it’s worked out.
In other words, maybe we who had high hopes were the ones who got tricked, not the EU Commission.
Update (2026-08-28): John Gruber:
I don’t recall seeing POSIWID before, but I love the concept. A friend sent this to me, with the quip that I forgot to include a link to it in my “What Is the Point of the DMA?” piece this week. Indeed, it encapsulates my arguments about the DMA specifically and the European Commission generally. The purpose of the DMA is what it does, not what you imagine it is intended to do.
I admit to being primed by seeing Jeff Johnson’s post, but I’m certain that my mind would anyway have immediately gone to our favorite scam promoting toll booth, the place that “gives people around the world a safe and trusted place to discover apps that meet [Apple’s] high standards for privacy, security, and content.”
Also consider which apps have to pay the toll and which ones show their own ads for free.
Apple has again failed to earn a stay for fee calculations in its ongoing legal fight with Epic Games. Apple's case will be heard by the Supreme Court in the term that begins in October, and Apple asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to pause proceedings until then, but the court said no [PDF].
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan today granted Apple a one-day stay in its legal fight with Epic Games, giving Apple more time to outline the fees it wants to charge developers for linking out to purchase options on the web.
Apple tried to freeze the entire thing while they appealed to the Supreme Court – and the Supreme Court denied the freeze. But they didn’t deny hearing the case – yet. That’s why they’re pausing the proceedings for now (after Judge Gonzalez Rogers denied the same request), while they weigh Apple’s appeal. But before they do that, they’re basically likely to decide today – again, it was just a 24-hour delay – whether they should grant a longer stay. Presumably if the court thinks they’re unlikely to hear Apple’s appeal, they may not grant that longer stay. Or if they think Apple filing their number won’t harm their business, they’ll let it proceed. But Apple will argue that if the longer stay isn’t granted, it will cause major harm to their business because again, it will effectively end the App Store cut as we know it.
Juli Clover (Engadget, The Verge):
Apple today submitted a court-ordered proposal outlining the commission it believes is reasonable to collect from U.S. apps that link to purchase options outside of the App Store.
Apple is asking for half of its commission on standard apps, so apps that would pay 30 percent for an in-app purchase would pay 15 percent when linking to a web purchase option. Small Business Program participants that would normally pay 15 percent would pay 5 percent.
[…]
The appeals court suggested the commission could be limited to the direct costs of facilitating link-outs, and under that approach, the fee would be zero. Apple says a zero commission would not reflect the value that it provides developers, and its suggested commission gives it fair compensation for the App Store platform.
[…]
The district court will now evaluate Apple’s fee proposal and hear a response from Epic Games , and Apple will need to implement the fee the court sets.
Unlike cost-only based commissions, Apple’s revenue-based commissions incentivize continued investment. Apple charges developers a $99 annual fee for the Apple Developer Program. May 17, 2021 Trial Tr. at 2762:21–2763:13. This modest fee—designed to prevent fraud and expressly not intended to compensate Apple for the use of its IP-protected tools, technologies, and services (id.)—allows developers to build apps using Apple’s offerings and deliver experiences to iOS and iPadOS users worldwide.
The annual developer fee is nominal. Apple relies on percentage-based commissions to recoup and profit from its investments. See id. ¶¶ 87–93. Apple is incentivized to invest in IP- protected tools, technologies, and services that generate revenue for developers (and benefit users).
[…]
Dr. Carlton explains that “reduc[ing] Apple’s incentive to invest and provide the technology and services that benefit users and developers” would harm users and developers, as well as Apple.
I like the part where Apple’s expert argues that its normal commission rates are so high that it would still be profitable for developers to pay the proposed linking commissions on top of what they would pay to Stripe or Paddle. In other words, paying Apple for “IP” almost twice what it admits the other companies charge for “full-service, turnkey payment processing.”
If the point [of the $99] is just to prevent fraud, why do we need to keep paying $99 yearly FOREVER? Is 10 years not enough to prove I’m not a fraud?!?
If the fee doesn’t help pay for Apple IP, then it’s even more blatantly unfair that a minority of apps have to pay for ALL apps to access Apple IP. Free apps, no matter how big or how much $ they make via ads, get access to Apple IP from OUR REVENUE CUT, and not even their $99 counts.
That’s what that enormous hardware margin from customers is already supposed to be paying for — Apple IP! In the early 00’s, I gladly paid the “Apple tax” (PowerBook G4) to get access to the Mac OS X software/ecosystem, including all the Unix and dev tools. I’m not sure why anyone thinks that double-dipping is fine on all the non-Mac platforms, App Store or not.
Jeff Johnson (2):
Schiller’s [previous] testimony about the previous program is extremely misleading, because the new program began in 2008 at the same time as the App Store, so there was no previous iOS developer program, and Mac Developer ID did not begin until 2012, so Apple Developer Program membership was not actually required to distribute Mac apps!
Fourth, it appears that Steve Jobs was wrong: the $99 fee didn’t prevent developers from flooding the App Store with a lot of junk.
I want to quote another remarkable passage from Schiller’s testimony, again with questions from Apple’s own lawyer.
Q. And Mr. Jobs says, “And also just to make it a little clearer, we don’t intend to make money off the App Store. I mean, we don’t make a lot of money off iTunes, and the split with the music companies is about the same, so in the case of the iTunes Music Store, we give all the money to the content owners, and we are basically giving all the money to the developers here. And if that 30 percent of it pays for running the store, well, that will be great, but we just want to create a very efficient channel for these developers to reach every single iPhone user.” Is that a statement that Mr. Jobs made back in March 2008?
A. He did.
[…]
I won’t quote the following passage in which Schiller testifies about his internal email suggesting that Apple limit itself to $1 billion per year in profit from the App Store, hand-waving away the suggestion as merely “spurring conversation.” Of course the email also seems to contradict Schiller’s (absurd) testimony that Apple does not specifically calculate profit from the App Store, only company-wide profit. Apple’s public financial statements also appear to contradict Schiller’s claims.
Previously:
Update (2026-08-20): Marcus Mendes:
On the same day, Apple submitted another motion, asking Judge Gonzalez Rogers to order the parties to attend a settlement conference.
[…]
Epic has now responded to Apple’s motion, stating that although the company “has been, and remains today, willing to entertain any direct approach from Apple with a serious settlement proposal that would introduce competition and benefit all developers,” it “does not believe the prospects of such settlement would be meaningfully advanced through referral to a settlement conference at this juncture.”
Update (2026-09-03): Marcus Mendes:
In addition to the proposal itself, Apple submitted supporting expert reports, alongside a request to seal portions of those filings containing financial data, link-out adoption estimates, developer survey results, and other information Apple considers commercially sensitive.
Epic has now filed an opposition to Apple’s request, arguing “Apple again seeks to conceal information from the public and unnecessarily hamper proceedings.”
Google began offering third-party app store downloads in the Play Store earlier this week, but US District Judge James Donato says the company isn't doing enough. After reviewing the process for accessing the first non-Google store, Donato ruled that Google has added unnecessary "anticompetitive friction," ordering the company to rectify the issues.
While Epic and Google are patching things up with a global partnership agreement, the two are still on opposite sides of the antitrust case in the US. Google lost the case in 2023, and the intervening years have been about determining how to implement remedies to address Google's anticompetitive behavior. One of the court's key elements is the requirement that Google include third-party app stores in the Play Store, giving users an easy way to get apps from non-Google sources. Aptoide Games became the first such app store recently.
However, Google worked hard to avoid this outcome, attempting to settle with Epic to keep third-party app stores out. When it was forced to admit the Aptoide store under the terms of the ruling, Google didn't exactly put up a banner welcoming third-party app stores. In fact, Judge Donato found in a Thursday hearing that Google's implementation was not good enough, according to The Verge.
A new day has dawned in the Play Store, and it's one that Google tried very hard to avoid. The first third-party app store has arrived in Google Play as a result of the long-running antitrust lawsuit with Epic. Those in the US can now head into Google Play and download Aptoide, a game-focused store that has been available as a sideloaded client since the early days of Android.
Forcing Google to distribute third-party app stores in Google Play was one of several remedies imposed by Judge James Donato after Epic emerged victorious in 2023. The remedies also included lowering developer fees, mirroring Google Play apps in other app stores, and allowing developers to use alternative payment systems. But it was the app store stipulation that seemed to irk Google the most.
Google almost avoided this outcome when it agreed to a settlement with Epic, which was announced early this year. Under the terms, Google would certify third-party app stores to allow users to install and use them with less friction, but it would not host them in Google Play. However, Google and Epic withdrew the settlement when it appeared the court would not approve it. This Registered App Store program is still slated to launch internationally, but in the US, Google is only doing what it must to comply with the judge's orders.
© Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
A new day has dawned in the Play Store, and it's one that Google tried very hard to avoid. The first third-party app store has arrived in Google Play as a result of the long-running antitrust lawsuit with Epic. Those in the US can now head into Google Play and download Aptoide, a game-focused store that has been available as a sideloaded client since the early days of Android.
Forcing Google to distribute third-party app stores in Google Play was one of several remedies imposed by Judge James Donato after Epic emerged victorious in 2023. The remedies also included lowering developer fees, mirroring Google Play apps in other app stores, and allowing developers to use alternative payment systems. But it was the app store stipulation that seemed to irk Google the most.
Google almost avoided this outcome when it agreed to a settlement with Epic, which was announced early this year. Under the terms, Google would certify third-party app stores to allow users to install and use them with less friction, but it would not host them in Google Play. However, Google and Epic withdrew the settlement when it appeared the court would not approve it. This Registered App Store program is still slated to launch internationally, but in the US, Google is only doing what it must to comply with the judge's orders.
© Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Joe Rossignol (PDF):
The complaint alleges that Apple violated California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act and other laws by failing to adequately review and monitor apps distributed through the App Store, despite marketing it as “a safe and trusted place to discover and download apps.” Due to these assurances in Apple’s marketing, the complaint said the plaintiffs trusted that a Sparrow Wallet app they downloaded from the App Store on iOS was legitimate, when in reality it was a fraudulent spoof designed to steal Bitcoin from users.
Sparrow Wallet is only available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The popular Bitcoin wallet is not available on iOS, but scammers have released fake lookalike apps in the App Store that can trick users into giving up control of their funds.
[…]
Even when victims reported fraud, the lawsuit alleges that Apple often took little to no action, and it says other fake Sparrow apps remain in the App Store.
Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw has publicly addressed Apple’s slow response to multiple fake versions of his app appearing in the App Store. In a January 2024 social media post, for example, he said “there is still a scam ‘Sparrow Wallet’ app on the @Apple App Store, despite myself and others having reported it weeks ago.”
My attempt to protect users from scam apps on the @AppStore has gotten my Apple Developer account flagged for termination - ironically, for “dishonest activity”.
[…]
I’m the developer of the real Sparrow Wallet, a desktop app, and I hold the registered US trademarks for the name and logo. I have publicly warned @Apple and the community about these fake apps from early 2024, but they keep appearing.
The app @Apple flagged was a placeholder that was never published. Its only purpose was to warn users that Sparrow is desktop-only and that other “Sparrow” apps aren’t mine. This approach may have been misguided, but there was nothing dishonest about it.
In response to our request for comment, Apple said it has taken swift action to remove any apps impersonating Sparrow Wallet[…] Apple says it takes immediate action against apps that do not comply with its guidelines.
Previously:
Update (2026-07-28): Sarah Perez:
The complaint targets one of Apple’s longtime competitive arguments: that its tight control over its App Store makes its platform safer than those offered by its rivals. The company has used this claim to push back against deregulation of the app ecosystem, including third-party app stores and sideloading.
“As part of a sustained marketing campaign, Apple has positioned itself, its products and services, as offering a level of security and trustworthiness superior to any competing technology company,” the new filing states. “This includes assurances about the safety of applications distributed through its App Store. By retaining exclusive control over which apps are permitted on Apple devices, Apple has structured its platform to ensure that consumers depend entirely on its promise of safety and reliability,” it reads.
With third-party app stores, there would be an incentive to do better vetting than Apple, and with sideloading it would be clear that the app was not being downloaded from sparrowwallet.com.
Update (2026-07-29): Jeff Johnson:
What struck me about Apple’s response is that it places the burden of curating the App Store on developers and users rather than taking responsibility for it. After all, Apple reviews every version of every app before it can be published to the App Store. If Apple is curating the App Store, then why do scams have to be reported and removed? One wonders how the scams get past Apple review in the first place, and even if Apple review “is not perfect” (a gross euphemism), how the second line of defense, Apple employees patrolling the App Store for scams that the review team missed, also fails. The burden of App Store curation should not fall to me, a lone indie developer.
Apple’s response also ignores that the indie developer did report the scams, multiple times.
Previously:
Google was today fined €890 million ($1 billion) by the European Union for breaching antitrust rules with regard to its search and Google Play store services.
The European Commission found that Google had broken the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by using its dominant position in the search market to favour its own services, like shopping and hotel deals, over those of rivals.
The Commission also said that the company had abused its position by preventing developers from directing users to cheaper ways to buy apps and app subscriptions on websites and alternative app stores.
The Commission noted that Google has begun testing changes to how its own services are placed in search results and rolled out changes to its steering terms, which the EU’s main executive body described as substantial progress towards compliance.
“Google has fallen short of effective compliance with the Digital Markets Act, and today we have taken decisive yet balanced enforcement action sanctioning these breaches,” said Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition.
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut.”
With search, Google is required to share with competitors — search engines and AI chatbots alike — a massive amount of user data from Google Search user interactions. What terms people search for, what they click on in results, what languages and devices they use. It’s all ostensibly anonymized but that’s tricky when it comes to search terms. A lot of the terms people type into web search fields are to some degree personally identifying. The EC seems to be saying it’s Google’s problem to filter out things like passwords and usernames and omit them from the shared datasets. Google can charge money for this access, but only under “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND)” prices, based on a Commission-defined methodology.
Previously:
Update (2026-07-27): John Gruber:
So if you search for the score of a sporting event, it’s illegal in the EU for Google to show you the score, like this search I just tried. What the EC is saying is that because Google Search is so popular, it’s no longer allowed to improve.
It drives me insane when in Europe the link between Google Search and Google Maps is broken and I often have to copy paste an address between the two. Thanks EU, what if I like Google’s integrations?
They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user’s account.
But of course, then the user could choose a competitor’s product and Google would have to honor it. That would be horrible, so instead they just made the user experience worse for everyone and elegantly made people blame the EU.
See also: Hacker News.
Ryan Whitwam (PDF, Reddit):
Back in 2018, Google was handed a record-setting 4.34 billion-euro ($4.9 billion) fine in Europe for abusing its monopoly on Android. The company has spent the intervening years challenging that decision, but the continent’s highest court has put a stop to that. The Court of Justice of the European Union has affirmed the penalty, meaning Google is out of options.
[…]
The EU took issue with Google search and Chrome being the default options on Android. Even devices made by other companies, such as Samsung and Xiaomi, include Google apps as the default per the Android licensing agreement, giving Google an unfair advantage, according to European antitrust regulators. This is not to be confused with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.45 billion) fine against Google’s advertising monopoly issued by the European Union last year.
In 2022, a lower EU court reduced the fine to the current 4.1 billion euros from 4.34 billion euros previously.
Google has argued that the Android operating system provides choice for users and supports developers and businesses across Europe.
Via John Gruber:
Google last year booked $132 billion in profit; this fine is about 3 percent of that..
[…]
There’s never a reason not to string the appeal process out, but it’s especially true when your profits are growing at an exceptional rate. By growing their profits around 5×, they’ve reduced the relative sting of this fine by 5×
Previously:
Apple’s challenge against the EU’s designation of its App Stores and iOS platform as “gatekeepers” was dismissed by Europe’s top court on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
[…]
The company also disputed the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service, or NIICS, which would subject the app to EU telecoms rules. But the General Court said Apple’s actions regarding the iMessage service are inadmissible.
Back in 2023, Apple acknowledged that it qualified under the then-new definition of being what the EU called a gatekeeper service. But key to that is the size of the operation, and since 2024, Apple has been claiming it runs five smaller App Stores rather than one large one.
[…]
“Irrespective of the devices in question,” ruled the judges, “those stores have the same purpose, namely to connect app developers with end users in order to facilitate the distribution of software applications.”
Apple disagreed with the decision but didn’t say yet if it would appeal. “We firmly believe the DMA’s mandate goes beyond what is lawful and proportionate, threatening to erode decades of privacy and security protections we’ve built and leaving our users vulnerable to new risks,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to multiple outlets. “We will continue advocating for the innovation and privacy our European customers deserve.”
Apple still has two cases pending with EU courts. The first is a challenge to the EU Commission’s decision last year forcing Apple to open iOS to third-party developers, and the second is an appeal against the €500 million fine imposed in April last year for anti-steering violations.
Previously:
The EU required Apple to permit third-party app stores, while a US court ruled that developers have the right to direct iPhone users to third-party payment platforms for app purchases and subscriptions. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is now proposing to apply this latter rule in the UK.
The U.K.’s competition regulator has proposed letting app developers direct users to payment options outside Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, in a move aimed at increasing competition and reducing the fees charged by the two companies.
[…]
The regulator said any fees Apple and Google charge developers for enabling such “steering” must be fair and reasonable, remain below existing App Store and Play Store commissions, and allow developers to either pass savings on to consumers or reinvest them in innovation.
Requiring Apple to allow apps to steer users to the web to make payments is, I’ve long argued, sensible regulation. I’ve also long argued that Apple has been obstinate in disallowing it. If in-app payments — through Apple’s system — can’t compete with out-of-app payments on the web, something is wrong with IAP. But it’s wrong to assume that payments outside IAP will result in lower prices and better policies for users.
They may increase prices when costs grow but that does not mean they do the opposite. But who cares? Lower costs permit more flexibility on pricing and, even if that money ends up in the pockets of developers instead of Apple, is that supposed to be a bad thing? Is there a reason why someone should be upset that they might pay the same amount but an indie developer gets to keep more of it?
The proposed policies are pretty straightforward from what I can see. Among other obligations, Apple is not allowed to use or require scare tactics when users are routed to an external payment mechanism and, while it is allowed to charge a steering fee, it is not allowed to count services not used by developers offering third-payments nor double-count for services already accounted for by other developer fees. Also, the CMA calls bullshit on Apple’s claim that third-party payments are particularly risky[…]
Previously:
Update (2026-07-30): Juli Clover:
Apple said new UK App Store rules would give regulators a “highly intrusive” role dictating how it runs its business, reports Reuters. Apple submitted feedback to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority as it considers forcing Apple to change its App Store rules around steering.
[…]
UK regulators said Apple can charge developers a fee, but it must be fair and reasonable, and below existing App Store commissions, so developers can pass savings to customers or reinvest them in innovation.
According to Apple, the CMA’s proposed rules would undermine innovation and investment, and would amount to price regulation because of the restriction on fees.
The issue before the commission currently is the built-in advantage for Gemini on Android. When you turn on any Google-powered Android phone, Gemini is already there and gets special treatment at the system level. The European Commission is taking aim at the lack of features available to third-party AI services. The commission believes that there are too many experiences on Android that only work with Google’s Gemini AI, and as a gatekeeper, Google must change that.
[…]
European regulators are proposing several broad changes to the way AI tools operate on Android phones. Some of this is straightforward, like allowing third-party AI tools to be invoked system-wide via hot words or button presses. This might also include allowing AI tools to view screen context when the user opens them.
[…]
Many of the Gemini AI features in Android, including Magic Cue, rely on running local models, and Google has been slow to allow third parties the system access to make that work effectively. So the EU is also suggesting a mandate that would ensure developers have the necessary hardware access to run local models “with high levels of performance, availability and responsiveness.”
Via John Gruber:
The difference between Google and Apple on this front is that Google just blazed ahead and shipped Gemini integrated into Android in the EU, and is now facing compliance problems after shipping. (Ask forgiveness.) Apple isn’t shipping Siri AI in the EU in iOS 27, knowing that it’s going to be deemed non-compliant. (Ask permission.)
Previously:
Update (2026-07-17): Juli Clover:
The European Commission today formally ordered Google to give third-party AI services the same access to Android device features that Gemini has.
[…]
The European Commission is giving Google a full year to implement changes that will meet the Digital Markets Act requirements, and that's before any legal appeals Google might make.
Google (via Ben Schoon):
This Android ruling threatens device security by granting external apps sensitive and powerful device permissions without these safeguards.
Update (2026-07-23): John Gruber (Mastodon):
They provide separate “Q&A” overviews of the guidance for Android AI interoperability and web search sharing, and the full guidance documents are PDFs (Case DMA.100220 for Android AI, Case DMA.100209 for web search).
[…]
The EC is demanding that Google create APIs that allow third-party AI assistants to do everything Google Gemini does now[…]
[…]
Also, in my reading, the EC is demanding that Google make available to third-party AI assistants all information in Google’s own apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Maps, etc.) that Gemini has access to.
[…]
Apple unfortunately hasn’t shared any technical details describing its proposal for a “Trusted System Agent” that it shared with the EC last year. But whatever Apple’s vision for the Trusted System Agent is, I don’t see how the EC would deem it compliant with the DMA if they want from Apple anything close to what they are now demanding from Google.
I don’t know what will come of this, but I’m pleased to see it in the sense that it is logically coherent. The TSA seems like a way to give the appearance of doing something without actually solving the problem. Like Gruber, I don’t really see why Google would want to comply with this rather than taking their Gemini ball and going home. Unlike Gruber, I don’t find it scary to let users opt into sharing their data and background time with apps of their choosing. I don’t like software design by government committee, but it seems less bad than further entrenching an unfettered monopoly. Maybe this could have been avoided if Google had developed its own reasonable solution instead of shipping something that was obviously not compliant.
A group of 48 China-based iOS developers have filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with the country’s market regulator over the App Store’s commission rates, the South China Morning Post reports.
The developers sent an open letter to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), alleging that Apple failed to deliver on a promise to offer the lowest commission rate to the Chinese market. The group asked the SAMR to investigate and penalize Apple for allegedly abusing its market dominance to impose “unfair and excessively high” costs on local developers.
Apple lowered the fees in March but not as much as it did in Brazil and Japan.
Previously:
Unfortunately, due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Apple will not be able to ship Siri AI in the European Union with the release of iOS 27 and iPadOS 27. Over the past several months, EU regulators did not accept any of Apple’s proposed solutions to bring Siri AI to the EU while safely supporting other virtual assistants.
[…]
EU users will be able to access Siri AI on macOS 27 and visionOS 27. Developers located in the EU will not be able to test or use the new Siri AI features for their apps on iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and watchOS 27.
[…]
According to EU regulators, the DMA requires Apple to give any AI system nearly unlimited access to a user’s device, as well as the ability to act on that access autonomously without a user’s ongoing visibility and control.
[…]
Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals.
This phrasing is not very clear, perhaps intentionally so. Apple is trying to give the impression that it did all this extra work to meet the DMA’s requirements, and yet the EC rejected its proposals, so it’s their fault Siri AI isn’t shipping in the EU. But it looks like the crux is that the Trusted System Agent is currently vaporware. What the EC rejected is that Apple wanted to be able to ship Siri AI now on the promise of future openness. The TSA would actually be built during this 18-month window of exclusivity. It’s not surprising that the EU would reject that proposal. The App Store doesn’t approve apps that flout the guidelines but promise to comply later. It doesn’t even entertain proposals of the form, “If I built this would it be approved?”
European Commission (via Steve Troughton-Smith, Update: John Gruber, Mastodon):
So first, the decision not to roll out Siri AI in the EU is Apple’s and Apple’s only.
Because absolutely nothing in the DMA prohibits Apple from introducing new products in the EU.
What Apple is however not allowed to do, just like any other gatekeeper, is to close the market.
[…]
Apple simply made a request to the European Commission to be exempted from their interoperability obligations under the DA.
And this for at least 18 months on top of it. Guess what? That’s not an option.
Apple said it detailed its plans for Siri AI to EU regulators six months ago, along with a technical proposal to allow secure third-party access to that data.
“In essence, a commission that’s asking us to conduct a very risky experiment on many, many, many tens of millions of users,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s marketing chief, told reporters, “and we only want to ship these capabilities when we can do so safely.”
The EU said not to ship it without the TSA, yet Joswiak spins this as the EU asking Apple to be reckless? And if Apple wanted to ship them safely, why did it stop working on them?
Apple spoke of having spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours on changes to comply with the EU. In the new report, though, Apple now says that it no longer knows what to work on.
So currently none of its engineers are working on adapting Siri AI to meet the EU’s demands.
It seems like Apple isn’t taking this very seriously. They’re more interested in trying to score PR points by blaming the delay on the EC rather than on building something compliant. So I guess the EC was prescient not to grant an exemption based on the promise that they’d follow through with the TSA.
However, do I think Apple should be made to open up that level of system access?
Honestly yes. They are worried about protecting my data. But it’s MINE. Me, the user.
Stick a big privacy prompt, maybe a system settings screen and reboot, but I want access to my data!
We can look to BrowserEngineKit to see how well it works out to introduce a trusted intermediate layer that Apple doesn’t itself rely on. And this seems like a much harder problem.
Yeah, that privacy layer is a stupid [non] starter. “Find the place my friend said we should go swimming and give me directions”
The only way that query can work with an intermediary layer is if the AI asks that layer to do the searching for them and only gets the response back.
Except that basically kills the advantage of LLM agents & instead delegate all the ‘smart’ parts to some dumb on device model Apple makes.
Previously:
Update (2026-06-11): Amy Worrall:
I keep seeing people (usually Americans) confused by where the EU is coming from with Apple and the DMA, eg “how can they care about privacy but also demand AI companies can access your data?”
My read is, the EU’s starting point is that a gatekeeper cannot treat itself as inherently more trustworthy than any other company. So if anyone’s AI can access your data, including Apple’s, it’s not up to the gatekeeper to say “we trust ourselves but don’t trust other companies” and force that on users.
The users should get to choose who they trust. And I think Apple is trying to draw a different line than it says. It worries that AI could be hijacked to steal your passwords and photos. But you can already install apps that manage and access that data. You can also install apps that access your calendar and mail data, and these apps can incorporate AI. Such apps actually get more access than what the EC wants because they must communicate with your servers directly. I would rather let an AI search my downloaded e-mails than read/write to my IMAP server, but Apple is blocking that option. The actual line it’s drawing isn’t that AI can’t access your data but that (aside from iMessage) it can only access it via additional engineering work and additional hoops for users to enter credentials. It seems like what Apple really wants is to make it hard for anyone to compete with Siri.
Update (2026-06-12): Cory Birdsong:
I’m skeptical that Siri AI is even capable of being meaningfully private or secure. As far as I know there is no mitigation for prompt injection, as Matthew Green describes here.
If it has access to private information, is exposed to external input and can access the Internet then how can they meaningfully claim it’s private or secure?
There’s a lot to unpack here, including more background information — and on-the-record statements — from a briefing Apple held Tuesday that I was invited to at Apple Park.
It’s frustrating that Apple has said so little on the record. They want to communicate that their “offers for compromise have been rejected,” but what exactly did they offer? Personally, I don’t think the TSA would be a very good solution because it would lock in both the limitations of Apple’s technology and their role as a gatekeeper. But Apple did not even say that the EC rejected the idea of the TSA, only that it rejected their proposal to violate the law for 18 months while building it.
But the bottom line is that Apple’s public statements regarding the DMA and the European Commission have never been this strident before.
[…]
Now, they’re a bit more on war footing. There’s a massive gulf between what Apple is willing to do with Siri AI in the EU and what the Commission is demanding from Apple for DMA compliance.
The European Commission isn’t demanding anything, the law is demanding it. The laws have been in place for several years now, Apple is currently in default of the law on several fronts, and is fighting its existing fines.
When the Chinese government wanted access to user data, Apple complied, but when the EU parliament voted for their citizens to be able to choose how to share their own data, that put Apple on a “war footing.”
There is some kind of irony in how Apple isn’t allowing Europe access to the new AI stuff; and meanwhile for the US, Apple is removing the setting for us to opt-out of it, effectively forcing it on us.
That’s how it is these days, huh? Either a government or a giant corporation makes our technology choices for us. We don’t get to choose for ourselves.
Previously:
Update (2026-06-17): John Gruber:
What exactly is the motivation for Apple and Google to engineer entirely separate systems for the EU to bring new features into compliance with the Commission’s broad interpretation of the DMA? Because if Apple doesn’t engineer a DMA-compliant version of Siri AI, iOS users in the EU will ... switch to Android, whose system-level AI was deemed noncompliant by the Commission a few months ago?
I briefly hoped that the DMA would lead to a sort of California effect for software, where products are designed for the stricter (more open, in this case) jurisdiction, and everyone else reaps the benefits, too, because that’s easier for companies than making separate versions of their products. But it turns out that Apple finds it well worth it to feature flag away the EU features it doesn’t want us to have, as well as the ones it doesn’t want to adapt for the DMA.
This doesn’t directly hurt Apple. It doesn’t force Apple to design, engineer, and ship a compliant EU-exclusive version of Siri AI that supports plug-and-play LLM back ends. It only hurts iPhone users who live in the EU, who are stuck with the old dumb version of Siri for the foreseeable future.
This demonstrates a market failure or legislative failure, depending on how you look at it. Both halves of the duopoly are in conflict with the law of the second largest economy in the word. Users will get a worse Siri, but this doesn’t bother Apple enough to do anything about it. Maybe the customers in the EU can be used as a bargaining chip. Neither Apple nor Google is worried that a competitor will come along with a compliant phone to challenge their dominance.
Here we are two years later and I think the answer is more clear than ever which side of the continental divide is more fun.
Gotta admit that as an EU citizen, I feel handicapped when it comes to brainstorming ideas to utilize Foundation Models.
Like, if I were to build a new app around them, it’s difficult to gauge if this is something Siri AI does out of the box when it isn’t available to me.
And unlike Apple, I intend to build software for the entire world.
Apple is acting out of greed and spite (see their hairbrained fee structures for alternative marketplaces as an example), but also yes, the DMA and enforcement thereof seems like a particularly difficult and capricious regulatory dynamic.
[…]
Those arguing that Apple is acting purely out of spite seem to suggest there is some obvious solution for iPhone Mirroring that would satisfy the interoperability mandate, but they never go into what that obvious solution is because they don’t know. They don’t know because I would guess no one does, not even Apple and certainly not the European Commission.
As far as I can tell, the European Commission doesn’t see it as their responsibility to help gatekeepers design features ahead of time in a way that should be compliant with the DMA. What they want instead is to decide whether or not a given feature runs afoul of the DMA after its released in the EU and presumably after they’ve gotten feedback from third parties.
If a developer emails Apple and asks if an app idea they have will be approved, they will get told to build it, submit it to the App Store, and see. The EU is the App Store here, and Siri AI is the app. I guess Apple don’t like their own policies.
I sympathize, even though Apple is in a better position than the developer, because it has more resources, because it would only potentially be blocked from shipping in one market, and because it can still sell its product in the EU, just with certain features disabled. Building something that might not be accepted is risky, but if you don’t submit anything that you think would be complaint with the rules, you don’t seem very serious. It’s still unclear to me exactly what Apple’s plan is. Its press release says it “will continue working” on bringing the features to the EU, but its SVP of marketing said in an interview that “none of its engineers are currently working on solutions.” Perhaps this implies that it’s banking on a legal or political solution rather than a technical one.
Update (2026-06-25): Jack Wellborn:
While the relationship between the European Commission and Google tells us nothing about playing ball, it tells us exactly how inconsequential support for alternative marketplaces is when it comes to regulatory scrutiny of integrated features. Apple hasn’t played ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are being withheld from the EU lest they get scrutinized for fines by the European Commission. Google hasn’t had to play ball with alternative marketplaces and now its new AI-based features are either being scrutinized for fines by the European Commission or being withheld lest they also get scrutinized. The European Commission is, rightly so in my opinion, regulating both operating systems equally and regardless of their support for alternative marketplaces.
It struck me today what a contrast this is with the rest of the AI world, increasingly connected via MCP. Imagine if Gmail was only accessible to AI on Android phones. If Teams was only accessible from a Windows Surface laptop. That is the kind of environment Apple’s policies create, with data locked into silos and monopolies free to leverage their existing strengths into dominance of new technologies too.
No thanks. Just as I should be able to sideload an app onto my own phone, I should be able to choose whether ChatGPT can access my iMessage history. The world is not going to come crashing down by giving users control of their own data.
Update (2026-07-02): Tim Hardwick:
Apple CEO Tim Cook held “constructive” talks with EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen on Tuesday about releasing Siri AI in the bloc while complying with the bloc’s digital rules, reports the Financial Times ($).
[…]
As for Apple’s proposed Trusted System Agent, a Commission official told the publication its contact with Apple on the idea was limited, and that it lacked a concrete proposal or details on how such an agent would work beyond the general concept. The official claimed Apple “focused on obtaining a green light to delay compliance.”
Update (2026-07-03): Nick Heer:
The DMA has been in effect for nearly four years and there is no reason why either party should be having so much difficulty with this proposal stage. Either the Commission is mischaracterizing Apple’s engagement, or Apple’s representatives need to be far better prepared.
It seems like Apple’s strategy is to encourage its customers to pressure the EU into changing the rules.
Previously:
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