Congressman says antitrust hearing confirmed Apple's 'deeply disturbing' behavior
Rep. David Cicilline, chair of the U.S. house antitrust committee, in an interview Wednesday said a recent antitrust hearing involving the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google confirmed suspicions that all four companies participate in anticompetitive behavior.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Cicilline suggested an ongoing antitrust probe into big tech will result in changes to existing antitrust laws.
"All of these companies engage in behavior which is deeply disturbing and requires Congress to take action," Cicilline said. "The kind of common theme is the abuse of their market power to maintain their market dominance, to crush competitors, to exclude folks from their platform and to earn monopoly rents."
The House panel is wrapping up a year-long investigation that in July culminated with a hearing at which Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were peppered with questions about their respective businesses. While most of the discussion centered on issues relating to Amazon, Facebook and Google, Cook was grilled on Apple's App Store policies including a 30% cut of in-app transactions, the app review process, borrowing features for first-party apps and consumer privacy.
Cicilline in today's interview declined to deliver specifics on the panel's recommendations, though he did offer potential solutions Congress might take to remedy the alleged anticompetitive behavior. One option could be a law styled after the Glass-Steagall act, the report said.
A Depression-era law that stood until it was repealed during the Clinton administration, Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking, and afforded the federal government greater control over retail banks. In addition to creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the act mandated that investment banks were prohibited from owning a controlling interest in retail banks. If applied to tech, a Glass-Steagall type stipulation would disallow a company like Apple from competing on a platform it runs.
"That's a big idea," Cicilline said about separation. "It would be one way to try to separate out what is a relationship fraught with conflicts that I think is promoting tremendous market dominance and bullying behavior by Amazon, as an example."
What, exactly, that would mean for Apple is unclear. An obvious modification in current business practices would be the removal of first-party apps on the App Store. To what extent such a law would impact Apple's stewardship of its flagship iOS platform remains unclear, though it might force the company to amend App Store restrictions that prohibit third-party app stores.
The Democrat said the bipartisan committee's report will focus on four areas including making changes to existing antitrust laws that date back more than a century, passing reforms that deal specifically with the tech sector, strengthening private antitrust litigation, and bolstering antitrust divisions at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, the report said.
A finalized report could arrive as soon as September, Cicilline said, in which case recommendations would be passed on to the current session of Congress.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Cicilline suggested an ongoing antitrust probe into big tech will result in changes to existing antitrust laws.
"All of these companies engage in behavior which is deeply disturbing and requires Congress to take action," Cicilline said. "The kind of common theme is the abuse of their market power to maintain their market dominance, to crush competitors, to exclude folks from their platform and to earn monopoly rents."
The House panel is wrapping up a year-long investigation that in July culminated with a hearing at which Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were peppered with questions about their respective businesses. While most of the discussion centered on issues relating to Amazon, Facebook and Google, Cook was grilled on Apple's App Store policies including a 30% cut of in-app transactions, the app review process, borrowing features for first-party apps and consumer privacy.
Cicilline in today's interview declined to deliver specifics on the panel's recommendations, though he did offer potential solutions Congress might take to remedy the alleged anticompetitive behavior. One option could be a law styled after the Glass-Steagall act, the report said.
A Depression-era law that stood until it was repealed during the Clinton administration, Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking, and afforded the federal government greater control over retail banks. In addition to creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the act mandated that investment banks were prohibited from owning a controlling interest in retail banks. If applied to tech, a Glass-Steagall type stipulation would disallow a company like Apple from competing on a platform it runs.
"That's a big idea," Cicilline said about separation. "It would be one way to try to separate out what is a relationship fraught with conflicts that I think is promoting tremendous market dominance and bullying behavior by Amazon, as an example."
What, exactly, that would mean for Apple is unclear. An obvious modification in current business practices would be the removal of first-party apps on the App Store. To what extent such a law would impact Apple's stewardship of its flagship iOS platform remains unclear, though it might force the company to amend App Store restrictions that prohibit third-party app stores.
The Democrat said the bipartisan committee's report will focus on four areas including making changes to existing antitrust laws that date back more than a century, passing reforms that deal specifically with the tech sector, strengthening private antitrust litigation, and bolstering antitrust divisions at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, the report said.
A finalized report could arrive as soon as September, Cicilline said, in which case recommendations would be passed on to the current session of Congress.
Comments
Wouldn’t that apply towards other platform App stores like Valve’s steam, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and if they want to start reaching, big box stores that sell products and have their own brands that compete with others they sell?
Plus, what happens to the cost of maintaining the servers for the App Store and other costs that Apple pays for as part of the 30%?
These politicians have screwed American companies in the name of anti-trust while Chinese companies are growing leaps and bounds because Chinese government helps in whatever ways necessary. American politicians are the real problems for hindering the success of American ingenuity. There is no American national strategy like China on how to help companies to succeed in global environment. Most of there success is their own and not from Government. Get rid of uninformed, moron politicians and America will be much better.
The numbers for vendor market share are also majority Apple
And given Epic‘s recent claims in its court filings about its importance to the world community as a communications platform, it seems fortnite is becoming a platform...albeit a virtual one. Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to compete on their platform either?
As for the app store, I still have problems with politicians and certain users trying to force a company to open up their platform to others. Apple is not a monopoly, they just have great products that people want to buy and I say 99.999% of these people are fine with there being only one Apple App Store. That way, we/they know what they're getting instead of having to worry about someone selling they crap like on the many android app stores. Remember 30% is not a premium. Google charges that and let's not even forget that that's a low overhead cost for most companies selling anything. I want to see a chart showing overhead operational costs for clothing manufacturers, especially show companies, pharmaceuticals and oil companies.
This is not why we buy Apple, we understand the benefits of concession. Other platforms provide what you’d looking for and all the nastiness it creates.