Italy's antitrust regulator probes Apple over cloud services under Digital Market rules

MILAN, June 16 (Reuters) - Italy's competition regulator said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation into Apple over possible non-compliance with interoperability obligations, under the European Digital Markets Act.

Under the rules, Apple must ensure that third-party providers of consumer cloud services can inter-operate effectively and free of charge with hardware and software components controlled through the group's iOS and iPadOS operating systems, and have equal access as Apple's iCloud service.

The authority said in the statement that it had proof that other providers of consumer cloud services could not be in the same position as iCloud, as they did not appear to have access to the same components used or made available to Apple’s service.

Apple said in a statement on Wednesday it had met its obligations under the digital market rules and was ready to address the authority's concerns.

"This new concern related to iCloud has never been raised in our extensive discussions with the European Commission on interoperability," Apple added.

The probe is the first opened by the Italian watchdog under the Digital Markets Act, which allows national regulators to conduct preliminary investigations.

The authority said the results of its investigation would be sent to the EU Commission.

(Reporting by Cristina Carlevaro and Sam Tabahriti, editing by Louise Heavens and Gavin Jones)