Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Facing Imminent U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wrong.
Abusing your dominant position to prevent competitors from informing (or linking) consumers about purchasing options may be anticompetitive behaviour though.
Because people should feel pressured to use Air Tags instead of tile if they wanted to... Give people the choice and not hamper them for that choice.
Apple will implement RCS but not the google one .... The Google version is End to end encrypted meanwhile the version Apple stated so far isn't... Take 2 steps forward one step back with Apple FR
Saying a thing does not make it a thing. Those specific bullet points mentioned above are laughable, and so is any support of it.
Excerpted from earlier posts:
The United States Justice Department is preparing to sue Apple for violating antitrust law as soon as Thursday, reports Bloomberg. The lawsuit will be the culmination of an investigation that initially started in 2019 as an antitrust review of major technology companies. U.S. regulators have already sued Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Over the last several years, Apple officials have met with the DoJ multiple times, and the investigation has covered everything from iMessage to ad practices. Some of what the DoJ has looked into:
Apple competitors like Tile, Beeper, Basecamp, Meta, and Spotify have had discussions with antitrust investigators to voice their complaints about Apple's practices, as have big banks. According to Bloomberg, the DoJ plans to argue that Apple has used illegal practices to maintain a dominant market position, blocking competitors from hardware and software features on the iPhone.
- How the Apple Watch works better with iPhone than other smart watches do.
- How Apple locks competitors out of iMessage.
- How Apple blocks financial firms from offering tap-to-pay services similar to Apple Pay.
- Whether Apple favors its own apps and services over those provided by third-party developers.
- How Apple has blocked cloud gaming apps from the App Store.
- How Apple restricts the iPhone's location services from devices that compete with AirTag.
- How App Tracking Transparency impacted the collection of advertising data.
- In-app purchase fees collected by Apple.
Back in 2020, a United States House Judiciary Subcommittee investigation concluded that Apple, Meta, Google, and Amazon have the "kinds of monopolies" last seen in "the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons." The subcommittee recommended new antitrust law, but the DoJ opted to target Google before going after Apple because Apple was embroiled in an antitrust lawsuit with Epic Games.
Apple in iOS 17.4 had to make sweeping changes to the way the App Store operates in the European Union to comply with the Digital Markets Act, and it was also recently fined $2 billion in Europe for anti-competitive behavior against rival music services.
Article Link: Apple Facing Imminent U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit
“why should the government tell a company how to operate?”
“The government attempting to control how they operate it is insane.”
“why does the government know better than the people purchasing the product(s)?”
“I am betting the government will lose, they don't have a good record.”
“This is really becoming a sh*t-show with all this gov’t interference”
The government … the government … the government … is a government that
was elected by people. The government is to represent people. There are many customers = people who are unhappy with Apple’s increasing monopolistic practices in growing its ecosystem. They — just like the ones who are happy with these practices — want governmental oversight = representation. In a democracy, there is nothing wrong with a government agency = DOJ to investigate business practices and enforce and/or write new laws if necessary to protect the people who prefer to vote with their brain rather than their wallet.
Depends who's saying the thing. A court for instance can say a thing and make it a thing.
No.
But lawmakers and regulators are increasingly agreeing that it does (that Apple is behaving anticompetitively).
Whereas you and I, we're two random people posting on an internet forum.
Frankly, the EU and its commission couldn't care less about your lazy one-liner "opinion".
They have decided.
If a closed, exclusive ecosystem becomes too popular to the extent it is deemed to be a monopoly due to its exclusive, anticompetitive practices, it would be considered against the antitrust law. As I said, I don't think display products in a single ecosystem would ever gain that large a market share, if only because that means other parts the hypothetical monopolistic ecosystem would have been shot down way before that could happen. But pretty much every Apple product is of the kind that may risk antitrust lawsuits if they become too dominant in their respective market. They're not like, say, Nvidia's products that can enjoy 90%+ market share at a more than 75% profit margin, which is possible because of their technological uniqueness. Apple doesn't have any like them.
Last edited:
Yes, and being a monopoly alone is not necessarily illegal as it's the dominance combined with anticompetitive behavior the creates the potential antitrust issues.
Still you can install a Toyota engine in to a ford car etc etc.
So… no the bar is much higher than that.
Yes, that is it. Never underestimate the government bureaucracy’s desire for power and control. They don’t like it when companies get too successful and they are greedy— like the EU, they want settlements, they want fines, and they want control.
And the market is already regulated— that’s why Apple needs FCC approval on every device it brings to market. This level of control has gone WAY beyond antitrust into government overreach.
Just because you are okay with gov’t over-regulation doesn’t mean the rest of us are.
It’s still a choice. Apple is under no obligation to share their iMessage tech with the rest of the world or put the Google version on their own devices.
It wasn’t 98.9%. Besides, market share is not the only thing that can determine a "monopoly" and, of course, a company doesn't have to be a "monopoly" to face antitrust scrutiny.
The reality is Apple has a dominant position in the mobile OS market in the U.S. and is being investigated for its alleged anticompetitive behavior. Time will tell how this plays out.
Your rebuttal makes no sense.
Are you implying that an iPhone should now be allowed to use a Qualcomm CPU (the engine),
instead of an Apple A16 CPU (the engine), otherwise they are a gatekeeper ?!?!?
And you took my response out of context.
Typical way to discuss something disingenuously.
I was responding to this statement:
"But only Apple makes iPhones which makes them a gatekeeper"
If Apple today isn’t being held to the same standards as Microsoft 20 years ago, something isn’t right.
Sorry but even as a shareholder and Apple faithful, this has been a long time coming.
Sorry but even as a shareholder and Apple faithful, this has been a long time coming.
...even though they pale against Apple desire for power and control over their iOS app business.
I mean, Apple have stricter rules on content and links than government has ever had.
No reason to believe that.
Apple have had a choice of competing fairly and complying with laws - or trying their hardest to work around them.
Play fair and comply with the law - no fines nor settlements needed. Easy as that.
(Though arguably the EU case about the Irish tax may not have been as foreseeable for Apple)
Regulating to prevent radio-frequency interference from devices has little to nothing to do with antitrust violations.
Maybe, maybe not? We can have different opinions and discuss that.
Lazily throwing out a "They're wrong. And so are you." (as the poster I replied to) makes no attempt at such discussion.
Sure bud. For people like yourself there’s clearly no such thing as a bridge too far when it comes to what Apple should be allowed to do. Fortunately elected governments all over the world see otherwise. Womp womp, as they say.
This is the same monopolistic federal government that says "you can only use USPS for mailing letters unless it's urgent, then you can use us or another carrier, but if you use another carrier it must ONLY be for urgent letters". This is why you can't get a FedEx ground or UPS ground envelope for mailing letters.
You can stick a pixel logic board in an iPhone case, but that's not what any of this is about.
This cuts both ways:
Android is a monopoly on Pixels
ChromeOS is a monopoly on chrombooks
EXACTLY!
These actions against Apple are "anti-competitive" in the sense they are against the very ideal of what competition is all about! Apple should be free to compete in a free market. It's not a free market when companies are forced to limit their competitiveness.
What needs to be targeted for anti-competitive behaviour are internet providers locking consumers into contracts. The Apple ecosystem is not a binding contract. People are free to leave anytime they want without penalty.