Apple lashes out at ‘privacy-threatening’ Digital Markets Act

Macworld The Digital Markets Act, or DMA, is a piece of EU legislation created with the stated aim of fostering competition and user choice, principally by forcing larger companies to make their products and platforms more accommodating to and interoperable with those made by the smaller ones. Unsurprisingly, it proved unpopular with the tech giants, but despite significant pushback, it came into force in May 2023 and continues to operate to this day. Apple is particularly unhappy about the DMA, which makes it difficult to cultivate digital monopolies and “walled gardens,” such as the iOS app ecosystem. The legislation has consistently pushed Apple towards allowing “sideloading,” or the installation on the iPhone of apps from non-official sources, and thanks to the DMA, users in the EU can even delete the official App Store app. In March 2025, the EU cited the DMA in ordering Apple to open up iOS connectivity features, a decision Apple decried as “bad for our prod