US DOJ prepping antitrust case against Apple
An anti-trust lawsuit from the Department of Justice is reportedly in the early stages of construction, further amping up the government's efforts to rein in Apple.
Apple AirTags
The US Department of Justice suit is reportedly largely focused on complaints from Tile, a company that makes location-tracking devices. Apple moved to compete with Tile and similar companies with its AirTag product.
Tile raised concerns in 2021 about AirTags and Apple's Find My app, and has raised its concerns with Congress. Along with AirTag, Apple also made it harder for companies to access location data with privacy changes.
Federal lawyers from San Francisco are leading the investigation, and have reached out to Tile's partners, according to three anonymous sources. In those meetings, both the App Store and iOS were mentioned.
For the App Store, complaints lie with Apple's rules about payment systems. Developers must use Apple for payment processing instead of a third-party company.
Epic Games, a prominent developer, led the charge against Apple with a lawsuit alleging much the same that Tile has. The federal judge in that case ruled that Apple is not a monopolist in regards to the App Store, but both sides are appealing. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled one for late October.
There is another antitrust bill moving through Congress that aims to prevent Big Tech from favoring their own services. It's currently paused as Congress is in recess.
Called the American Choice and Innovation Act, it would put restrictions on tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. It was revised in early 2022 to address concerns from companies and lawmakers.
Apple said the bill as originally written would create unintended privacy and security vulnerabilities for users. "We believe the proposed remedies fall far short of the protections consumers need, and urge lawmakers to make further changes to avoid these unintended consequences," the company wrote.
The changes would make it easier for Apple to defend its privacy features, but still force it to allow side-loading, a feature that lets users download apps from outside of the App Store.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple AirTags
The US Department of Justice suit is reportedly largely focused on complaints from Tile, a company that makes location-tracking devices. Apple moved to compete with Tile and similar companies with its AirTag product.
Tile raised concerns in 2021 about AirTags and Apple's Find My app, and has raised its concerns with Congress. Along with AirTag, Apple also made it harder for companies to access location data with privacy changes.
Federal lawyers from San Francisco are leading the investigation, and have reached out to Tile's partners, according to three anonymous sources. In those meetings, both the App Store and iOS were mentioned.
For the App Store, complaints lie with Apple's rules about payment systems. Developers must use Apple for payment processing instead of a third-party company.
Epic Games, a prominent developer, led the charge against Apple with a lawsuit alleging much the same that Tile has. The federal judge in that case ruled that Apple is not a monopolist in regards to the App Store, but both sides are appealing. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled one for late October.
There is another antitrust bill moving through Congress that aims to prevent Big Tech from favoring their own services. It's currently paused as Congress is in recess.
Called the American Choice and Innovation Act, it would put restrictions on tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. It was revised in early 2022 to address concerns from companies and lawmakers.
Apple said the bill as originally written would create unintended privacy and security vulnerabilities for users. "We believe the proposed remedies fall far short of the protections consumers need, and urge lawmakers to make further changes to avoid these unintended consequences," the company wrote.
The changes would make it easier for Apple to defend its privacy features, but still force it to allow side-loading, a feature that lets users download apps from outside of the App Store.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
*and that increase is causing shrill screams and made up stories about 80+K auditors from Fox and others on the right.
This is a little different. Apple was fine with Tile, even sold Tile, but now that Airtags are out Apple seems to be making life harder for Tile and other tracker companies to work on iOS.
The government is out of control
Government is out of control
Doe 49 percent Chinese owned Epic games or a company with a poor product care more about your privacy and rights than Apple?
but this government takes their side on this? Working for the Chinese owned Epic games?
Freedom is risky and creates trouble, but it's with it in the end.
Leave our American, home-grown success stories alone! Even if Apple has bent some companies out of shape (who are all upset for reasons they aren't enriched even more), it hasn't done anything to warrant Big Brother stepping in a screwing everything up. Funny part is, most of those elected officials who support this action against Apple no doubt have a significant amount of AAPL in their portfolios. Hurting Apple hurst AAPL and themselves.
Crazy, every way you look at it.
The difference is AirTags is a useful product that is superior to the competition and which people prefer. Whereas IE was a complete pile of shit that Windows tried to force you to use by being the linked default browser - only later could this be changed.
Here, iOS is only the OS on about 23% of the Worlds mobile devices. Not even the EU is claiming that Apple has a monopoly with iOS. The EU had to pass new anti-trust laws that can be applied where a tech company only needs to have a "dominate" marketshare, even if that "dominate" marketshare is less than 25% and they have a market cap over some arbitrary amount set to exclude any non US corporations.
The difference is that iOS is not a monopoly, as defined under current anti-trust laws, using a "relevant" market that is not artificially narrowed down to one brand.
Companies that run alternative networks to Find My may have some cause to complain, just like any other company who has their product Sherlocked.
Apple has been successful at producing quality goods and expects to be paid for doing it. That does not make them a monopoly.
Sherlocking is a strange idea. It's just some competitor making a product which competes with yours and perhaps doing a better job. Just because it's Apple doesn't make it any different from any other company though they have substantially more resources to throw at such products than most so such companies are at a real disadvantage.
Tile had a great idea -- but you can't protect the idea using IP laws. But, a company like Tile would be underwater and bankrupt if they'd have much of the success of Apple with AirTags. Tile never had to worry about their customers illegally tracking others -- too small a customer based to attract the miscreants doing that. The success of AirTags brought the Feds into the game because how they were sometimes being used. Being big and successful can have significant downsides in this way.