The DMA record: the first 18 months

The Digital Markets Act came into force in November 2022; the first gatekeeper designations were in September 2023. The DMA is a more ambitious instrument than the GDPR — instead of protecting data, it targets market structure itself. After 18 months of enforcement, the early evidence is mixed.

The first fines

In April 2025, the first DMA fines were imposed:

• Apple €500 million for violation of rules on managing the app store
• Meta €200 million for the "pay or consent" model on Facebook and Instagram

Apple subsequently made a series of concessions in App Store rules. The wider pattern of selective exit is also visible in Apple's product release strategy for the EU: Apple Intelligence was held back from EU markets at the June 2024 launch and only arrived with iOS 18.4 in April 2025; in a September 2025 statement Apple confirmed that iPhone Mirroring and Live Translation with AirPods remain unavailable in the EU, citing DMA interoperability obligations.

Meta took an earlier and broader position: in July 2024 it stated that its future multimodal Llama models will not be offered in the EU, citing "the unpredictability of the European regulatory environment".

What this shows

Three observations:

Regulatory enforcement works, but produces a "fines-and-litigate" cycle, not immediate behavioural change. From the gatekeeper's perspective: a €500 million fine is, for Apple (annual revenue >$380 billion in FY2024) , an operating cost, not an existential threat. Appeals take years. In the meantime rules may change, the Commission may be different, political will may weaken. The rational reaction is to pay, appeal, adapt minimally, wait.

Selective exit is a real threat, not a hypothetical. EU customers are getting access to new products late or partially: Apple Intelligence with a nine-month delay, iPhone Mirroring and Live Translation not at all, future multimodal Llama models not at all. This is in direct tension with the DMA's stated goals (open markets, increase competition); paradoxically the regulation achieves the opposite at the product-availability margin (it restricts what reaches European consumers).

Cloud is becoming the next layer of DMA enforcement. In November 2025 a new investigation against Amazon and Microsoft was opened concerning their cloud services. This directly affects the topics treated in the cloud alternatives chapter, and means the European CIO must plan for regulatory turbulence in cloud markets in the next two years.

Malicious compliance

Several academic observations (TechPolicy.Press, December 2025) identify malicious compliance as a real problem: formal adherence to the letter of the regulation while preserving the economic substance of the original behaviour. The gatekeeper technically meets the requirement, but structures compliance so that its practical effect on its dominance is minimal.

This is exactly what regulation by itself, without alternatives, produces. It is the gap the balance chapter closes the case on.