There are fresh regulatory obstacles that two US IT companies are apparently experiencing in Europe.
In one scenario, the subject is Apple’s App Store; in the other, the focus is on Meta AI, Meta’s AI assistant.
According to a report published in The Financial Times (FT) on Friday, June 14, the European Commission (EC) will file charges against Apple following its assessment that the company is not adhering to a mandate that permits app developers to refer users to offers that are available outside of Apple’s App Store without levying fees. Unnamed sources were quoted in the FT piece.
The source states that if Apple is indeed the target of accusations, this may be the first instance of EC action taken in accordance with the recently enacted Digital Markets Act (DMA). In March, the European Commission announced that it was looking into Apple, Alphabet, and Meta using the DMA’s authority.
According to the article, the regulators have just reached preliminary conclusions, the timing of any judgment may alter, and they may reevaluate any final ruling if Apple modifies its business methods.
“We’re confident our plan complies with the DMA, and we’ll continue to constructively engage with the European Commission as they conduct their investigations,” Apple said in a statement sent to the Financial Times.
Regarding Meta, it announced on Friday that it is postponing the launch of its AI assistant, Meta AI, in Europe. This decision was made in response to a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), acting on behalf of the European data protection authorities (DPAs), that it postpone training its large language models (LLMs) using adult-shared content from Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms.
The proposal is “a step backwards for European innovation,” the business stated in the update, adding that it was “disappointed” by it and that it had taken the European DPAs’ opinion into consideration.
In the update, Meta stated, “We are committed to bringing Meta AI, along with the models that power it, to more people around the world, including in Europe,” “But, put simply, without including local information we’d only be able to offer people a second-rate experience. This means we aren’t able to launch Meta AI in Europe at the moment.”
