EU regulators are investigating Apple for Digital Markets Act violations — but this time it's the company's Maps and advertising services under the microscope.

The European Commission (EC) has long been Apple's bugbear. The Brussels-based antitrust regulator previously compelled the company to permit third-party app stores within the European Union. It also forced Apple to transition from its proprietary Lightning connector to the widely adopted USB-C standard.

But now, it seems that two more of Apple's services — Apple Maps and Apple Ads — are getting picked apart.

On Thursday, Apple notified the Commission that both Apple Maps and Apple Ads meet the thresholds for gatekeeper, according to a new post to the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) site. Apple is legally required to self-report anything that could be a potential violation, and meets certain wickets for user base.

The Commission has 45 days to investigate Apple and see if it meets the criteria for either service. If it does, Apple will have six months to bring both services into compliance.

Apple is seeking exemptions for the two services.

A brief history

According to the European Parliament, a gatekeeper has to provide a core platform service (CPS) — such as social media, browser, messaging services, and more — and have at least 45 million monthly end users in the EU. They must also have 10,000 annual business users, a market cap of at least 75 billion euros, or a yearly turnover of 7.5 billion euros.

Previously, the EU's issue with Apple has been how its App Store policies handled developer fees and anti-steering rules. This resulted in Apple allowing third-party app stores on its devices within the EU.

But the App Store wasn't the only thing that the Commission found fault with.

In 2023, it ruled that Safari was a CPS and that Apple gave preferential treatment to its own browser over others. Apple pushed back, saying that Safari wasn't one browser, but three, hoping to slide under threshold requirements.

Source: Appleinsider