One year after the European Commission’s ruling and €500 million fine, Apple has responded not with compliance, but with delay, defiance, and circumvention.
Today, the Coalition for App Fairness publishes its DMA Health Check — a one-year review of Apple’s failure to implement the Commission’s April 2025 decision on steering. The report finds that Apple has failed on every requirement set by the Commission: it continues to impose a deterrent warning screen designed to discourage users from following outgoing links; it has repackaged its fees under new labels — a Store Services Fee, a Core Technology Commission, and an Initial Acquisition Fee — with combined charges reaching up to 20 and it applies its Initial Acquisition Fee even to users that Apple played no role in acquiring.
Gene Burrus, Global Policy Counsel, Coalition for App Fairness, said: “One year after the Commission’s landmark decision, Apple hasn’t just failed to comply with the DMA — it has openly defied it. While developers in the US can now steer users to better deals free of charge, developers in Europe are still being taxed at every turn under rebranded fees that breach the Commission’s own decision. The Commission must now enforce the DMA with full force and refuse to let Apple’s tactics rewrite the rules.”
The situation is made more stark by events in the United States, where a federal judge recently held Apple in contempt for similar behaviour, compelling the company to allow steering free of charge. European developers are now operating in a less open and less competitive market than their American counterparts — a direct inversion of what the DMA was designed to deliver.
CAF calls on the Commission to crack down on Apple’s behaviour and strongly supports the European Parliament IMCO Committee’s resolution to scrutinise Apple’s terms and sanction any circumvention.