US consumer watchdog hands Wall Street rare win with Big Tech crackdown. Apple (AAPL.O) reportedly filed a court complaint contesting decisions made by the European Commission under its recently passed Digital Markets Act, according to a post by the Court of Justice of the European Union on X. Apple is challenging these judgments as violating the Digital Markets Act.
The stringent new rule targets 22 “gatekeeper” services run by six different technology companies: Microsoft (MSFT.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Google (GOOGL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O), Meta, and ByteDance’s TikTok.
The law intends to make it simpler for customers to switch between competing services by mandating that companies interoperate their messaging applications with their competitors and allowing users to choose which apps come pre-installed on their devices.
Bloomberg News reported a week ago that the business would oppose the placement of its App Store on the list of gatekeepers. The specifics of Apple’s legal case have not been made public, but the news outlet said Apple would challenge the inclusion.
Both fellow tech titans, Meta (META.O) and TikTok, had already appealed the decision of the Commission to include their services in the scope of the investigation.
In its appeal, Meta stated that it disagreed with the Commission’s classification of Messenger and Marketplace services as falling under the DMA’s purview. This argument did not contest the inclusion of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
TikTok, meanwhile, stated that its designation posed a threat to the consolidation of power among the industry’s most prominent corporations.
“Far from being a gatekeeper, our platform, which has been operating in Europe for just over five years, is arguably the most capable challenger to more entrenched platform businesses,” the announcement stated. A request for comment was sent to Apple, but the company did not immediately answer.
