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US v. Apple: everything you need to know

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source link: https://www.theverge.com/24107581/doj-v-apple-antitrust-monoply-news-updates
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US v. Apple: everything you need to know

By Victoria Song, a senior reporter focusing on wearables, health tech, and more with 11 years of experience. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.

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The US Department of Justice has filed a case against Apple for violating antitrust laws. More specifically, the case revolves around how Apple has used its locked-down iPhone ecosystem to build a monopoly.

The DOJ alleges that Apple blocks “super” apps, suppresses mobile cloud streaming services, blocks cross-platform messaging apps, limits third-party digital wallets, and even limits how well third-party smartwatches work on its platforms. This is the third time that the DOJ has sued Apple for antitrust violations in the past 14 years, and if you’re wondering why it was filed in New Jersey, we might have an explanation for that.

During a press conference announcing the lawsuit, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco said Apple’s efforts “smothered an entire industry.” A response to the lawsuit from Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz says, “This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets.”

The DOJ’s complaint “...made an even stronger case than I thought that they could,” said Vanderbilt Law School professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth. She continued on, saying, “They told a very coherent story about how Apple is making its product, the iPhone and the products on it – the apps — less useful for consumers in the name of maintaining their dominance.”

This case is likely to have a widespread impact, and given how long the DOJ’s case against Microsoft in the ’90s lasted, it could be a while before we see a resolution.

All the news and updates about the DOJ v. Apple case continue below.

  • United States v. Apple is pure nerd rage

    Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

    United States v. Apple is a lawsuit written for the general public, an 88-page press release designed to be read aloud on cable news shows. 

    A lawsuit is, functionally speaking, a communication between lawyers and a judge. Because it is a specialized missive to a specialized audience, it can become highly technical and jargonistic — this is especially so when it comes to niche areas of law like antitrust or complex sectors of litigation like technology. Tech lawsuits are often obscure even to techies, interspersed with bizarre software terminology that is pretty much meaningless outside of a court of law. (For example, antitrust law loves “middleware,” and copyright law loves “technological protection measure.”)

    Read Article >

  • Mar 22

    Emma Roth

    How an artificial tooth monopoly put the DOJ’s blockbuster Apple antitrust suit in New Jersey

    Image: The Verge / Getty Images

    So, what do artificial teeth have to do with the Department of Justice’s massive lawsuit against Apple? Well, they may be one of the reasons why the DOJ decided to file its lawsuit in the state of New Jersey — instead of, say, Virginia or Washington, DC, like it did for Google and Microsoft.

    The DOJ previously filed — and won — a similar antitrust case against a company that makes fake teeth in the Third Circuit, which includes New Jersey.

    Read Article >

  • ‘Even stronger’ than imagined: DOJ’s sweeping Apple lawsuit draws expert praise

    Cath Virginia / The Verge

    The Department of Justice’s antitrust division has come into its own, having filed its third tech monopoly lawsuit in four years.

    The accumulated experience shows up in the complaint, according to antitrust experts who spoke with The Verge about the complaint filed Thursday accusing Apple of violating antitrust law. The DOJ describes a sweeping arc of behaviors by Apple, arguing that it adds up to a pattern of illegal monopoly maintenance. Rather than focusing on two or three illegal acts, the complaint alleges that Apple engages in a pattern of behaviors that further entrench consumers into their ecosystem and make it harder to switch, even in the face of high prices and degraded quality. 

    Read Article >

  • Why the DOJ’s case against Apple has everything to do with Microsoft in the ’90s

    The DOJ says it paved the way for Apple’s rise — now it wants to check the company’s power.Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

    Inside the US Department of Justice’s 88-page antitrust complaint against Apple, there’s a cool reminder to the company: you’re here because we paved the way.

    According to the DOJ, its antitrust case against Microsoft cleared the way for Apple — then teetering on bankruptcy — to launch its breakout success: the iPod. Decades and trillions of dollars later, Apple is in the hot seat. And because time is a flat circle, it’s facing an antitrust case built directly on that 1999 case against Microsoft.

    Read Article >
  • Meet Jonathan Kanter, the man heading the antitrust charge against Apple.

    This New York Times article provides an overview of Kanter’s career in criticizing competition, from representing Microsoft’s offensive against Google during the Obama administration to leading the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

    “In some ways, he’s still looking for that more prominent trophy to go on the mantelpiece,” said former FTC chair William Kovacic. “You win one of these monopolization cases, you can take the rest of the decade off.”

  • Apple’s antitrust fight begins

    Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

    Over the course of 88 pages of surprisingly readable legalese, the US Department of Justice attempted to make the case that Apple is a problem. Apple, the DOJ alleges in its sweeping antitrust complaint, has systematically crushed innovation in the smartphone world, robbing not only competitors but also iPhone users of the opportunity to get better software and use better hardware.

    The argument is complicated, but it has an awful lot in common with another big antitrust trial, one the government won more than two decades ago: US v. Microsoft. That case was about a huge corporation ruthlessly working to neutralize any company that threatened to open up its walled gardens, make it easy for people to build and use cross-platform software, or end the control it had over its massively successful and massively popular platform. This one is very different but also very much the same.

    Read Article >

  • Smartwatches shouldn’t make you choose either Apple or Android

    The Apple Watch-iPhone connection is well established.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

    When people ask me what smartwatch they should buy, I always ask them the same question: what phone do you have?

    Sadly, the phone you have largely dictates which smartwatches you can buy. They aren’t standalone devices. You need a phone to set them up, and as the US Department of Justice pointed out in its monopoly case against Apple, that makes them the perfect accessory for locking people into an ecosystem. If you spend $400 on an Apple Watch and absolutely love it, you’re less likely to give up on an iPhone you don’t like.

    Read Article >

  • Spotify and Deezer applaud the Apple antitrust suit

    Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

    Spotify, Deezer, and other Apple critics are having a field day today. This morning, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit over how Apple controls the smartphone market. This comes in addition to Apple’s woes in Europe, where it is mitigating compliance with the Digital Markets Act and has been ordered to pay a $2 billion fine following a complaint made by Spotify.

    The DOJ complaint, which was joined by attorneys general and district attorneys from 16 other states, alleges that “Apple undermines apps, products, and services that would otherwise make users less reliant on the iPhone, promote interoperability, and lower costs for consumers and developers.”

    Read Article >

  • Apple CarPlay is anticompetitive, too, US lawsuit alleges

    Image: Ford

    Buried in the 88-page antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice against Apple is a reference to everyone’s favorite phone-projection system, CarPlay.

    The DOJ says that, like smartphones, vehicle infotainment systems have become a new way in which Apple exhibits anticompetitive behavior to harm consumers as well as its competitors.

    Read Article >
  • Why is the Department of Justice suing Apple?

    For a fast and clear explanation, deputy editor Alex Cranz spells out the antitrust lawsuit filed today in just under five minutes.

  • The lock-in problem at the heart of the Apple monopoly lawsuit

    Green bubbles are actually a big part of the DOJ’s case against Apple.Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

    It’s no secret that Apple products work best if you stick with an iPhone. It turns out that’s a big reason why Apple landed in hot water today with the US Department of Justice, which alleges that the company went too far in locking down messaging, smartwatches, and digital wallets to intentionally hobble its rivals.

    This won’t be a surprise to most consumers. We’ve all known for years about green bubbles and that you can’t bring your Apple Watch to an Android phone. What the DOJ is saying is that, altogether, this series of protective policies makes it extremely difficult for an iPhone user to leave its walled garden, limiting competition so much that it breaks the law.

    Read Article >

  • Mar 21

    Emma Roth

    How Apple’s war on super apps became the center of its antitrust fight

    Cath Virginia / The Verge

    Apple is facing a monumental antitrust lawsuit from the Department of Justice, and a large part of the agency’s argument centers around Apple’s alleged attempts to suppress cloud gaming services and so-called “super” apps. Namely, the DOJ claims Apple stifled the development of both types of services to maintain its monopoly on the mobile market.

    As cloud streaming services started becoming more popular in 2020, Apple introduced new rules that seemed designed to give services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Facebook Gaming, and GeForce Now a place on the App Store. But in reality, it did the opposite. The rules severely limited the presence of cloud gaming services on the App Store, as Apple required developers to submit their games to the App Store for approval individually — rather than having them exist in a singular hub of games.

    Read Article >

  • Five takeaways from the huge US antitrust lawsuit against Apple

    Apple CEO Tim Cook.Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images

    The US Department of Justice is suing Apple for “monopolizing smartphone markets” to help guarantee the iPhone’s continued success — to the detriment of consumers and third-party developers. The suit was filed on March 21st and will take a long time to play out. It touches on everything from iMessage lock-in and App Store developer fees to “super apps” and cloud gaming. If the government is successful, we could witness a sea change moment for the iPhone and Apple’s ecosystem at large.

    Apple, as expected, is deeply critical of the DOJ’s antitrust filing. “This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets,” said Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz. The company also said the legal battle sets “a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”

    Read Article >

  • UNITED STATES SUES APPLE

    Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Getty Images

    The US Department of Justice accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in an expansive new antitrust lawsuit that seeks to upend many of the ways Apple locks down iPhones.

    The DOJ, along with 16 state and district attorneys general, accuses Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its phones. The parties allege that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone as a way to prevent competition from arising, according to the release.

    Read Article >
  • Apple’s response to the DOJ’s iPhone antitrust lawsuit.

    The statement from Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz in response to the antitrust lawsuit announced this morning:

    At Apple, we innovate every day to make technology people love—designing products that work seamlessly together, protect people’s privacy and security, and create a magical experience for our users. This lawsuit threatens who we are and the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets.

    If successful, it would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple—where hardware, software, and services intersect. It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology. We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it.

  • Press conference wraps with Kanter saying Apple’s choices have made its system less private.

    Kanter said the lawsuit explains “the illegal and exclusionary conduct that Apple has engaged in is not necessary to protect security and privacy.” To the contrary, “in many instances, Apple’s conduct has made its ecosystem less private and less secure.”

  • Garland addresses massive resource imbalance between DOJ and Apple.

    “When you have an institution with a lot of resources, that in our view is harming the American economy and the American people, it’s important for us to allocate our resources to protect the American people,” Garland said. “And that is certainly the case where individual Americans have no ability to protect themselves.”

  • Apple has felt threatened by easy ways to switch between iPhone and Android, says Kanter.

    “Apple has long relied on contractual restrictions rather than competition on the merits to fortify its monopoly power,” Kanter said. He pointed to emails between an Apple executive and then-CEO Steve Jobs in 2010, lamenting a Kindle ad where a user switches seamlessly between the Kindle app on an iPhone and an Android.

  • Apple benefited from DOJ’s Microsoft case.

    Apple was a “significant beneficiary” of the DOJ’s suit against Microsoft more than 20 years ago, said Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division. “The remedy paved the way for Apple to launch iTunes, iPod and eventually the iPhone.”

    He described the new suit as a way “to protect competition and innovation for the next generation of technology.”

  • You should read this epic story from 2000 on the Microsoft antitrust trial.

    I reread this massive Wired piece this morning on the train, a propos of, you know, things. It’s an incredible tale of antitrust warfare, and it’s wild how much of what the DOJ said and did about Microsoft rhymes with today’s lawsuit against Apple.

    I’d bet that Tim Cook saying “buy your mom an iPhone” will become an iconic legal phrase the way “cut off Netscape’s air supply” did 25 years ago.

  • The Apple suit echos DOJ’s earlier Microsoft challenge, DOJ says.

    The new complaint “alleges that Apple has engaged in many of the same tactics that Microsoft used,” Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said, referencing the DOJ’s landmark antitrust case at the turn of the century.

  • Apple has maintained “a chokehold on competition,” deputy AG says.

    Apple has “smothered an entire industry” by shifting from “revolutionizing the smartphone market to stalling its advancement,” according to Lisa Monaco.

  • Apple doesn’t actually do everything for security, AG alleges.

    Garland described how Apple “inserts itself into the process” of transactions through its digital wallets, when consumers may “prefer to share that information solely with their bank.”

    “That is just one way in which Apple is willing to make the iPhone less secure and less private, in order to maintain its monopoly power,” Garland said.

  • Read the lawsuit: United States v. Apple

    Cath Virginia / The Verge

    The US Department of Justice announced today that it’s suing Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market and using its position “to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants.”

    In the 88-page suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the Justice Department alleges that Apple is using a variety of unfair tactics to entrench its market position and restrict innovation. These include blocking so-called “Super Apps,” which would make it easier for customers to switch between smartphone platforms, imposing an effective ban on cloud streaming services for content like games, degrading the experience for cross-platform messaging apps, restricting the compatibility of non-Apple smartwatches with its phones, and barring third-party developers from accessing the iPhone’s tap-to-pay feature to offer their own digital wallets.

    Read Article >
  • Garland takes on green texts.

    The AG says it’s not just that the green texts between Android and iPhone devices are annoying, there’s also “limited functionality.”

    “Videos are pixelated and grainy, and users cannot edit messages or see typing indicators,” Garland said.

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