Apple's market value evaporates by billions of dollars, and the EU's new digital bill curbs the power of tech giants
On September 6th local time, the European Union announced the latest Digital Markets Act, which is another major legal measure to curb the market power of technology giants after the EU's Digital Services Act came into effect last month.
The DMA Act defines Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Tiktok as the "gatekeepers" of Internet services. Enterprises labeled as "gatekeepers" need to interoperate their applications with competitors, which means these enterprises need to open their application interfaces, interact with other applications, and share data; And it is up to the user to decide which applications to pre install on their device, such as Google or Apple's map application.
Affected by this, Apple's stock price plummeted by 3.6% on the same day, and its market value evaporated overnight to billions of dollars. Amazon and Google stock prices have both fallen by around 1%.
The DMA bill also prohibits large technology companies from monetizing mobile user information and from using data collected from mobile applications to establish detailed personal consumer behavior information for advertisers.
This measure aims to weaken the power of technology giants, prevent price monopolies, and allow technology startups to compete fairly with technology giants in the same market.
The bill will also restrict the mobile payment systems of Apple and Android, allowing some startups to provide innovative payment services to consumers.
According to the new bill, tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Amazon have six months to comply. After 6 months, if they fail to comply with the law, they may be fined up to 10% of their turnover. Taking Meta as an example, the company's annual revenue is approximately $120 billion.
Apple stated on September 6th that it is concerned about privacy and security risks in the new EU Digital Markets Act. "Our focus will be on how to mitigate the impact of privacy and security risks and continue to provide products and services to our European customers," Apple said in a statement.
Microsoft stated that it accepts the label of "gatekeeper"; Meta indicates that it is evaluating the label of the "gatekeeper".
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of gaming company Epic Games, commented on the latest DMA bill released by the European Union on the X platform. He believes that Apple and Google can still establish a system to prevent competition through their shopping malls and continue to levy so-called "Apple taxes" and "Google taxes".
Sweeney wrote, "I believe the ultimate outcome of DMA will be for Apple and Google to tacitly allow third-party stores to open and establish payment methods, but they will still work hard to weaken true competition, maintain Apple and Google taxes, and prevent price competition from undermining their monopoly on profits earned without effort."
Epic Games has filed lawsuits against Apple and Google, and Sweeney is a long-term critic of the "Apple tax" and "Google tax". He believes that the platform's use of its monopoly position to draw a 30% commission is extremely unreasonable.
