Apple's troubles with the EU's Digital Markets Act are continuing, with Italy now investigating iCloud and the cloud storage market.
The Digital Markets Act has been a thorn in Apple's side, with it giving regulators more reasons to examine its business practices in Europe. In the latest salvo, Italy's Competition Authority is now going after the company.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Autorita Garante Della Concorrenza E Del Mercato said it had launched an investigation into Apple Inc, Apple Distribution International Ltd, and Apple Italia. It is looking into whether Apple complies with the DMA's interoperability requirements, specifically for cloud storage.
Under Article 6(7) of the DMA, the regulator says that Apple must ensure that third-party providers of cloud services to consumers have "free and effective interoperability" with iOS and iPadOS. The third parties must also have access under equal conditions to the same hardware and software features that iCloud has.
The regulator believes that third-party cloud services are not under the same equal footing as iCloud, due to a lack of access to the same features. As an example, the regulator says that Apple doesn't let users perform full backups of their device data to third-party cloud storage sites in a similar way to current iCloud backups.
This is the first probe of its kind for the Italian regulator using the DMA. It adds that the investigation is launched in "close cooperation" with the European Commission, and its findings will be shared once they have been adjudicated.
Apple has yet to comment on the existence of the new probe.
A continued DMA problem
The DMA has been a persistent problem for Apple in the two years after it came into effect. It is a regulation that Apple opposed long before its introduction, and continues to do so.
The DMA has led to many concessions by Apple affecting the continent, including the opening of alternative app storefronts to the App Store, store fee changes, and even things like removing Wi-Fi network syncing on the Apple Watch.
The just-announced Apple Intelligence and Siri AI changes are also not going to be available in the EU, as Apple prominently pointed out in its WWDC keynote. Rather than try to comply with the interoperability rules for its AI, Apple simply won't implement it.
Apple believes that the rules work directly against its efforts to preserve privacy and security. The EU regulators "extreme interpretation" of the DMA would require Apple hands over deep system-wide access to any AI provider.
It's a major stalemate in an ongoing regulatory argument over what should be accessible to third parties and what should be kept separate. With Italy's new probe joining the fray, there won't be a solution anytime soon.
