[micwag]

a) This is explicitly forbidden

b) Apple is free to act as payment provider, but can't force businesses to use it.

If they decide to do it anyway:

  In case a gatekeeper does not comply with the obligations laid out in the DMA, the Commission can impose fines up to 10% of the company's total worldwide turnover, which can go up to 20% in case of repeated infringement. In case of systematic infringements, the Commission is also empowered to adopt additional remedies such as obliging a gatekeeper to sell a business or parts of it, or banning the gatekeeper from acquiring additional services related to the systemic non-compliance.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/QANDA_...

Apples iMessage is also currently evaluated. In a total coincidence Apple also announced recently that RCS support is coming.

[bdcravens]

Strange that they can be fined based on worldwide turnover for rules broken in the EU.

[9point6]

This is how these EU regulations get their teeth: turnover not profit and global not local to a region—they can't creatively account their way out of the fine and it's always going to be big enough to really want to avoid, no matter the size of the company. None of this "the fine is just the permit fee for those that can afford it" attitude.

[theshrike79]

And it's not the company, it's the whole conglomerate.

So Google can't just make an EU subsidiary that never makes a profit and thus the fines don't have teeth.

It's the global turnover of Alphabet Corporation.

[extraduder_ire]

I have to assume at least one company is going to try setting up a company, completely divesting from it, and contracting it to perform operations in the EU. With an open process for tender, even.

Not that it'd work, but might be amusing.

[xbmcuser]

No what is stranger is 1million dollar fines on trillion dollar companies then expecting to change behaviour. In some European fines for speeding etc are also based on a person income $100 fine on a millionaire won't have any effect