DOJ in Early Stages of Drafting Possible Antitrust Suit Against Apple (politico.com) 31
Justice Department lawyers are in the early stages of drafting a potential antitrust complaint against Apple, Politico reported Friday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter -- a sign that a long-running investigation may be nearing a decision point and a suit could be coming soon. From the report: Various groups of prosecutors inside DOJ are assembling the pieces for a potential lawsuit, the individual said, adding that the department's antitrust division hopes to file suit by the end of the year. Still, the Justice Department has made no decisions whether or when to sue Apple, the world's most valuable public company, cautioned that person and one other familiar with the probe -- and it's still possible no case will be filed. Both were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential investigation.
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Yup - there's no need for Apple to have a PR department when all those fanboys will do all that work for free.
Re:Watch out for the swarm of Apple fanbois... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup - there's no need for Apple to have a PR department when all those fanboys will do all that work for free.
They're a lot like Telsa in that regard.
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Building out another monopoly... (Score:2, Insightful)
The last time the DOJ came down against Apple, it ensured that Kindle would be the dominant digital book platform for several generations... so I look forward to seeing what megacorp benefits from the DOJ hammering Apple this time!
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You mean when Apple was unable to make everyone else charge the same ridiculously high prices that they wanted to charge they were unable to be competitive? Aww, so sad.
Guess you love Amazon then (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean when Apple was unable to make everyone else charge the same ridiculously high prices
I mean when Apple was trying to keep Amazon from cornering the market, thus being able to charge what Amazon dictates for a book - as they do today.
I guess you think having only one digital book provider is awesome, but I fail to see how handing all control to Amazon has helped anyone. It certainly killed off non-Kindle eBook readers.
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Haha! Good one! Before Apple heroically tried to keep prices down, Amazon was selling ebooks for around $9.99 (in 2012). Once Apple engaged in illegal price fixing, the price of ebooks shot up to $15. The DOJ killed that plan, and now, 10 years later, the price of ebooks is still around $9.99.
Kindle is dominant because they have the product most people prefer. You can get Kindle readers for any platform you want. You are not restricted to only using books purchased from Amazon on your Kindle. About t
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You're missing the point. Apple COULD have competed fairly and matched (or beat) Kindle prices, service, etc but they didn't. Instead, they chose to take illegal actions to harm competitors instead of beating the competitors with superior products. The fact that Apple failed as an ebook seller is neither the fault of Amazon nor the DOJ. It is entirely, 100%, Apples greed that did that.
Having the lions share of a market (or even all of it) is not a problem as long as you got (and maintain) that share fa
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After the whole DOJ thing last night, Apple books (https://www.apple.com/ca/apple-books/) shut up shop and left, leaving the market. That was one less place to buy ebooks.
Google Play Books (https://play.google.com/books) also used to be an eBook shop, but as you said, they shut down and aren't in business.
Kobo (https://www.kobo.com/), gone.
As you said, there is literally only Amazon now, or you'd have to make your own shop. "if you want to release an eBook, your options are Amazon
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Google will never become victims of a serious anti-trust suit by the DOJ because Google is a defacto branch of the US government, working closely with the FBI/CIA/NSA to facilitate intelligence gathering.
But Apple is the little guy! (Score:2)
Long overdue (Score:3)
iOS not only does that, but also forces other browsers to use their own built-in rendering engine. Apple Pay gets access to the NFC chip, but no other app. Payments for any apps have to be made using their payment gateway and give Apple a cut
This is long overdue and I often have trouble believing the gall of the Apple Management team
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I remember making the argument many years ago that Microsoft having the biggest competitor in the market being their own previous versions of products was not healthy for the market. I believe this was about the same time Microsoft was getting run through a wringer on their tactics over browsers and web servers. I don't know if Apple has the same kind of hold on the market, and the comparison holds.
A quick web search tells me that Apple has about 56% of the cell phone market. That's a lot but it still te
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> A quick web search tells me that Apple has about
> 56% of the cell phone market. That's a lot but it still
> tells me that people can switch to a competitor
> without running into huge issues like switching from
> Windows to Mac back in the day.
Yeah. That's the big difference. If I decide I'm unhappy in Apple's "walled garden" I can easily leave. If I decide I don't like Apple's strategy of curated, sandboxed apps with most of them having limited (if any) access to the vital bits like the Se
Apple devices (Score:2)
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I hope all those DOJ lawyers, researchers, assistants, managers, etc., aren't using Apple phones, tablets, & laptops to communicate with each other about this case. They do know that Apple holds the encryption keys to their accounts, right?
Citation, please?
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Citation, please?
By the fact that Apple has announced its plans to scan users' files & photos for evidence of wrongdoing so that they can report them to the police. How else are they going to do that if they don't have users' encryption keys? These announcements also suggest that Apple has no plans to stop keeping copies of their users' encryption keys.
Citation? How about this one: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/... [eff.org]
Where does Apple have a monopoly? (Score:2)
Is there anywhere where you have no choice or a Hobson's choice to use Apple?
If you choose to use Apple products you know it's a walled garden.
I would think Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Facebook would be easier antitrust targets
I don't use Apple products.
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Every time this topic comes up, someone pipes up with their personal definition of monopolies and "choice".
It's about anti trust, not choice. Is three company large enough to distort the market? Clearly, yes. Are they abusing that position?
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FYI, antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power. The distinction you wish to make does not exist. If Apple has vigorous competition, then there is no monopoly or antitrust.
Apple still has under 14% of global marketshare for personal computers. The issue can not be here, as Lenovo, HP and Dell all individually have more marketshare than Apple, and Windows hold's 75% of installs.
Apple recently reported they have finall
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What apple is doing with Ios and Safari is far more abusive. Aplle forbids any competition from other browsers, all 3rd party browsers on Ios are forced to use apple's safari browser, which is absolutely unfair and abusive, and VERY anti competitive.
It's long past time that apple gets slapped with antitrust over this situation, it's abdolutely shitty what they are doing, and it hurts their customers.
Waste of effort (Score:1)