In today’s Digest, we cover Apple appealing €500m EU app store fine, Threads nearing X in daily app users, and Google AI overviews facing legal challenges in UK and EU

Apple Appeals €500m EU App Store Fine

Apple has filed an appeal against the European Commission’s €500m (£430m) fine for violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA), accusing the EU’s executive body of going “far beyond what the law requires”.

The fine relates to Apple’s restrictions on app developers steering users to alternative payment options outside its App Store. Regulators said the practice hindered competition and breached DMA obligations. In response, Apple revised its App Store policies, introducing a new fee structure in an effort to comply with EU demands.

Announcing its legal challenge, Apple claimed the EC is “mandating how we run our store and forcing business terms which are confusing for developers and bad for users.” The company also argued that the commission had unlawfully expanded the definition of “steering” in its ruling.

Threads Nears X in Daily App Users

According to new data from Similarweb, Instagram Threads is closing in on X in terms of global daily mobile users. In June 2025, Threads recorded 115.1 million daily active users across iOS and Android, a 127.8% year-on-year increase. This is in comparison to X’s 132 million recorded, which represents a 15.2% decline.

Meta’s Threads is gaining traction on mobile but continues to trail X significantly on the web. In June, X saw 145.8 million global daily web visits, compared to just 6.9 million for Threads. On mobile, the gap was narrower: Threads recorded 15.3 million daily active users in the US across iOS and Android, while X led with 22.9 million.

In the US, the web gap is even more stark. Threads had just 985,200 average daily web visits versus Bluesky’s 2.4 million and X’s 33.1 million. However, Threads is faring better on mobile, with 15.3 million US daily users compared to X’s 22.9 million. X however still had 33.1 million average daily web visits in the US.

Google AI Overviews Face Legal Challenges in UK and EU

Google’s AI Overviews product is under legal scrutiny, with complaints alleging that the feature repurposes publisher content without allowing publishers options to opt-out. The Movement for an Open Web, along with other organisations has filed a complaint with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The groups claim Google’s AI-generated summaries use publisher content for grounding responses without providing a way for news organisations to opt out without also being excluded from search results entirely.

The Movement For An Open Web (MOW) in the UK published details of a complaint to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA): “Last week, the CMA announced plans to consult on how to make Google search fairer, including providing “more control and transparency for publishers over how their content collected for search is used, including in AI-generated responses.”

Foxglove has called for urgent intervention, warning that the UK’s news industry risks falling behind jurisdictions like the US and South Africa, where regulators have already proposed mechanisms to separate AI usage from basic search inclusion.