Apple fined 1.8bn over music streaming row with Spotify

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.

- Lisa O'Carroll Dan Milmo

The fine is nearly four times higher than expected, as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies that abuse their dominant positions in the market for online services.

The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said a smaller fine would have been nothing more than the equivalent of a parking fine and the €1.8bn was designed to act as a deterrent against a repetition of such practices by Apple or others.

"I think it is important to see that if you are a company who is dominant and you do something illegal, it will be punished," she said. "We want to show our resolve that we will go into these cases." As a result of the anti-competitive practices, the public ended up paying more than they should have for music streaming, Vestager said. "Apple's rules ended up harming consumers.