The European Union has imposed a fine of $568 million on Apple for discouraging third-party payment options on its App Store

Apple has been penalized €500 million, which amounts to $568.6 million, by the European Union for breaching the Digital Markets Act.

As reported by Eurogamer, the violation involves Apple's prohibition on App Store applications mentioning or facilitating alternative payment options outside of Apple's system. This policy effectively forces developers to hand over 30% of their earnings to Apple.

The European Commission stated earlier: "Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases," according to their statement.

The Commission concluded that Apple's restrictions hinder developers from fully utilizing alternative distribution channels and limit consumers from accessing potentially less expensive alternatives. The firm failed to show that its policies are necessary and fair.

The directive insists that Apple must eliminate these barriers and cease any non-compliant actions, highlighting that the severity of the non-compliance influenced the fine.

Meanwhile, the investigation into Apple's "user choice obligations" is now closed due to Apple's early engagement in addressing the issues.

Similarly, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was fined €200 million ($227.5 million) for its advertising practices.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ended its inquiry into Apple's in-app payment framework in August, which was examining the possibility of regulatory breaches.

At that time, Apple made changes to its terms in the EU to allow linking to external payment systems, but this was deemed insufficient by the European Commission, which concluded that Apple violated anti-steering rules under the DMA in today's decision.