Brussels fined Apple €1.84 billion E.U. ($2 billion U.S.) for preventing other music streaming companies from fairly competing by creating restrictions on its App Store. It is the first penalty for Apple from the EU. The European Commission charged Apple last year with preventing Swedish streaming service Spotify and others from informing users of payment options outside of its App Store after a 2019 complaint by Spotify.
Apple will appeal the decision. Even though that may take several years, Apple must pay the fine and comply with the EU decision. Expectations were that the fine would amount to 500 million euros. Instead, a basic fine was levied with 1.8 billion euros on top of it as a deterrent.
Apple claims that the commission had no credible evidence of consumer harm and that the beneficiary would be Spotify. In addition to this suit, Spotify claims that Apple also has bad behavior towards developers beyond music streaming worldwide.
Apple must remove its restrictions and comply with the Digital Markets Act by March 7.
