iPhone Antitrust and Computer Fraud Claims Upheld 273
LawWatcher writes "On October 1, 2008, a federal judge in California upheld a class action claiming that Apple and AT&T Mobility's five-year exclusive voice and data service provider agreement for the iPhone violates the anti-monopoly provisions of the antitrust laws. The court also ruled that Apple may have violated federal and California criminal computer fraud and abuse statutes by releasing version 1.1.1 of its iPhone operating software when Apple knew that doing so would damage or destroy some iPhones that had been 'unlocked' to enable use of a carrier other than AT&T."
Wait... what? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a hard time seeing how the iPhone could be considered monopolistic when it has such a small market share; you can't have a monopoly by law unless there are no good alternatives to your product.
On the other hand, I'd love to see an end to the AT&T exclusivity agreement and unlocked iPhones for sale in the USA. I hope this case leads to more than just punitive damages.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:clarification (Score:3, Interesting)
per the first paragraph, the AT&T/Apple restriction is ok, but they [might have] imposed other limitations after the 2 year contract (umm, which hasn't ended for anyone yet).
If someone purchases an iPhone and ends their two year contract after they pay the applicable fees associated with an early ended contract, is it against "computer fraud and abuse" to not allow them to use their hardware?
Recently Sprint was forced into allowing its customers to unlock their phones [cnet.com]. So, applying that logic, if I own an iphone (and am not renting it from AT&T, is it not an abuse of law to release a patch to hardware which intentionally damages my property?
Sorry if that didn't make sense.
This is just a preliminary finding. (Score:5, Interesting)
The title of the article discussed a motion to dismiss. The article itself was slashdotted, but a motion to dismiss only means that the lawsuit is allowed to continue. The holding only means that the complaint states a legally-cognizable cause of action, and does not address the substantive merits of the plaintiffs' (as it was a class action) case aside from that.
I would like to know if this was filed under the federal antitrust statutes or the California antitrust laws. If it is the former, than the decision would have national implications and Apple may lose significant amounts of money if it is found liable of anti-competitive conduct.
Moreover, if the contract between Apple and AT&T Mobile is ruled in violation of law, does AT&T owe Apple money anyway, or are they just going to sue each other? This will be fun to see.
Antimonopoly? (Score:5, Interesting)
Apply iPhones are a small fraction of all smart phones, let alone all phones.
AT&T/Cingulair has at least a couple viable large competitors in most markets in the U.S.
How the heck is this a monopoly?
What about CDMA phones? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who gets to be in the Class? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is what really gets me. AT&T and Apple's deal isn't abnormal in the cell phone industry. Certain phones don't show up in certain regions because of such deals.
The big plus of this whole lawsuit is that all this will be made public and the cell phone industry will be forced to change. Like Apple broke open music downloads by forcing an industry to be more open (and closed), maybe this lawsuit will break open the cell phone industry. Of course it won't be apple leading the charge but defending the old ways but hey you must start somewhere.
Re:Good (Score:1, Interesting)
Only if you buy into the idiotic US business model. If we had things working the way they do in some countries, the consumer would be empowered to run any device on any network they want.
Point five is false. (Score:3, Interesting)
The original iPhone WAS subsidized by AT&T. The fact that it was only available with AT&T service, so there was no unsubsidized price listed, doesn't mean there wasn't a subsidy.
I imagine Apple will appeal on this basis at least.
My take (Score:1, Interesting)
My take on why apple should be punished isn't the exclusivity deal with AT&T being the only seller of the product, but with them disabling the product on other carriers, such that you can't use the itunes service if you did unlock the phone. Phones have been carrier locked for years, but most carriers can provide unlock codes for these phones once the contractual obligation is met, freeing the phone to be used with the other services. The iPhone however looses full functionality due to software restrictions installed by the manufacturer.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet this week one of my clients is still struggling to get a reliable 1 Mb/s connection to their office, right here in the middle of Los Angeles. They are currently paying $150/mo for a DSL line that ain't working. Even if it worked, that's almost a factor of 3000 increase in the cost per Mb/s relative to the new stuff in Japan.
Re:No one deserves this more than Apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Meh. It's still worthwhile if it creates a disincentive for Apple to do this.
Re:No one deserves this more than Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
so I don't see why artificially tying the iPhone to AT&T would be considered illegal under current legal definitions
Seriously? Are you serious? Because there's an f'ing law against artificially tying products to services. It's illegal under current legal definitions because there's a law against it. Jesus.
Not so precise, actually (Score:5, Interesting)
Er, it's easy to make software that irreparably damages embedded systems. We're not talking about software that runs in nice safe wrap-you-in-bubblewrap PCs any more.
Send the wrong configuration down to a CPLD or FPGA device and you can configure the voltage inputs to be (say) 1.2 volts when a 5v signal is being applied. Kiss bye-bye to that oxide layer in minutes (or seconds). If the part that's now burnt out is only used during configuration, or even just rarely (say a low-power situation), it may not be obvious that you're SOL.
Along comes a new configuration (the Apple one) and Boom!(TM) - dead hardware.
I don't know if the iphone contains configurable parts with that sort of vulnerability (like FPGA's) - I do know it contains an embedded system for the baseband receiver which needed to be configured for that update.
Embedded processor systems like these are *much* more vulnerable to the halt-and-catch-fire [babylon.com] because they're expected to be configured in a certain way, and the QA is rarely done to make them bulletproof, like traditional processors.
As far as I can see, Apple were only being reasonable: it's entirely possible for the hacked reconfiguration of the GSM baseband system to have completely screwed it up (because it probably didn't dot every 'i' and cross every 't' - it was a trial-and-error job after all), and the problem to only become apparent when a new "proper" configuration was attempted.
So, pretty *not* precisely, IMHO. For what it's worth, I've blown CPLDs up on one project and months later come back to use the same board on another project and found out it was no longer reconfigurable. It worked fine in the configuration it had, but as soon as I reconfigured, no dice.
Simon.
Re:No one deserves this more than Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other hand.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's common /. knowledge that Apple + AT&T lock-in is pure evil - I agree with this knowledge, fwiw.
And it was evil of Apple to break hacking iPhones restricting user freedom.
On the other hand, maybe....
1. Apple saddles up AT&T to break into the phone market.
2. AT&T goes for it. Apple Board of Directors is appeased; if iPhone fails somehow, how were stockholders not protected by the new venture, given Apple's attempt to partner with the phone giant?
3. Many people are offended and alienated by this, however, the fact remains:
4. iPhone sales are a tech phenomenon.
5. Apple keeps AT&T happy by breaking hacked iPhones. See point 4 for how this affects Apple's bottom line. Note that AT&T never publicly complained.
6. Apple waits for it to be the court's fault that they have to open things up for other carriers.
7. Apple expands its iPhone market without violating the AT&T agreements for hegemony.
If you've spent much time at all in Silicon Valley, this kind of thinking and planning isn't so outlandish.
And truth is most often stranger than fiction in the tech industries.
Re:It may be ilegal in many places ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Forcing people to buy one product in order to be able to buy another is a classroom example of an anticompetitive practice, which is banned in most civilized places
As I mentioned above, this is not entirely true. Bundling products is perfectly reasonable and accepted in every country I know of. It's a matter of how that bundling is used. For example, a Ford dealer does not have to sell you a frame or body of a car separate from the engine, even though in many cases the engine that is supplied with the car is manufactured by another manufacturer (not 100% sure about for but I know that Lotus does that). My Apple computer comes bundled with an Intel processor, which is again, considered standard and acceptable practice.
Again I am not defending Apple in this case, though I have my opinions, as I am just trying to point out that not all bundling is illegal or regulated, or even unfair.
Re:Precisely (Score:2, Interesting)
"That's a bunch of crap. There is no such thing as irreparable damage to software."
What, you've never overclocked an [expletive] Pentium before? You've never seen a fumbled BIOS upgrade? You've never seen a hacker stomp all over encryption hashes in NVRAM as part of an "unlock" procedure and then whine that the manufacturers should have anticipated and magically prevented his own abject clumsiness?
"This is a clear example of monopoly tying, which is illegal."
You think you can read the law like you can read code fragments? The law doesn't work that way. The iPhone is a subsidized phone.