The US Justice Department and more than a dozen states filed a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing the giant company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.
It’s the largest in a recent string of Big Tech companies to face antitrust complaints from the US government, which is cracking down on the massive industry, whose power has gone largely unchecked over the past several decades.
The complaint, said Attorney General Merrick Garland at a news conference, alleges that ”Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits but by violating federal antitrust law.”
“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law,” he added.
The long-anticipated lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, comes after years of allegations by critics that Apple has harmed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach to its hardware and software: Apple famously makes its tech easy to use, but it achieves that by tightly controlling – and in some cases, restricting – how third-party companies can interact with the tech behemoth’s products and services. In some cases, Apple may give its own products better access and features than its competitors.
The company said it denied the lawsuit’s allegations and would fight them and added that the lawsuit could empower government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”
But Garland on Thursday said Apple’s actions have wide-ranging effects.
“Monopolies like Apple’s threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based. They stifle innovation. They hurt producers and workers and increase cost for consumers,” Garland said Thursday.
“If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly. But there’s a law for that,” he added.
For example, Apple allows iPhone customers to send high-quality photos and videos seamlessly to one another, but multimedia texts to Android phones are slower and grainy. The company late last year relented and agreed to improve the quality standard it uses to interact with Android phones via text message – but it still maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.
The company also gives its own products the ability to access certain parts of its hardware that it restricts other companies from using. That unleashes an almost magical experience for how iPhones interact with AirTags, when competitors’ products are far more limited in their capabilities.
“Apple creates barriers that make it extremely difficult and expensive for both users and developers to venture outside the Apple ecosystem,” Garland said on Thursday.
It’s the largest in a recent string of Big Tech companies to face antitrust complaints from the US government, which is cracking down on the massive industry, whose power has gone largely unchecked over the past several decades.
The complaint, said Attorney General Merrick Garland at a news conference, alleges that ”Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits but by violating federal antitrust law.”
“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law,” he added.
The long-anticipated lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, comes after years of allegations by critics that Apple has harmed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach to its hardware and software: Apple famously makes its tech easy to use, but it achieves that by tightly controlling – and in some cases, restricting – how third-party companies can interact with the tech behemoth’s products and services. In some cases, Apple may give its own products better access and features than its competitors.
The company said it denied the lawsuit’s allegations and would fight them and added that the lawsuit could empower government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”
But Garland on Thursday said Apple’s actions have wide-ranging effects.
“Monopolies like Apple’s threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based. They stifle innovation. They hurt producers and workers and increase cost for consumers,” Garland said Thursday.
“If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly. But there’s a law for that,” he added.
For example, Apple allows iPhone customers to send high-quality photos and videos seamlessly to one another, but multimedia texts to Android phones are slower and grainy. The company late last year relented and agreed to improve the quality standard it uses to interact with Android phones via text message – but it still maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.
The company also gives its own products the ability to access certain parts of its hardware that it restricts other companies from using. That unleashes an almost magical experience for how iPhones interact with AirTags, when competitors’ products are far more limited in their capabilities.
“Apple creates barriers that make it extremely difficult and expensive for both users and developers to venture outside the Apple ecosystem,” Garland said on Thursday.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/tech/apple-sued-antitrust-doj/index.html
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