Overview
- Italy’s competition authority has opened a Digital Markets Act investigation into whether Apple gives third-party consumer cloud services the same access to iPhone and iPad hardware and software internals that it provides to iCloud.
- The probe focuses on whether competing cloud providers receive equitable and cost-free access to the specific components and APIs used by iOS and iPadOS, which are needed for full interoperability inside Apple’s ecosystem.
- Whatever the AGCM finds will be forwarded to the European Commission, which enforces the DMA and can impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s global annual turnover for proven breaches.
- This is the first time the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato has launched a DMA-based investigation, creating a possible enforcement pathway national regulators can use against designated gatekeepers.
- The case follows earlier Italian scrutiny of cloud practices in 2020 and could meaningfully affect consumers and rival cloud providers by forcing deeper technical access, changing service integration, or altering costs for non-Apple services.