WASHINGTON, March 22 — The US Department of Justice and 15 states yesterday sued Apple as the government cracks down on Big Tech, alleging the iPhone maker monopolized the...
Apple joins competitors sued by regulators, including Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms and Amazon.com across the administrations of both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. — Reuters picWASHINGTON, March 22 — The US Department of Justice and 15 states yesterday sued Apple as the government cracks down on Big Tech, alleging the iPhone maker monopolized the smartphone market, hurt smaller rivals and drove up prices.
Dating back to its time as a marginal player in the personal computer market, Apple’s business model has long been based on charging users a premium for technology products where the company dictates nearly all of the details of how the device works and can be used. The Justice Department seeks to unwind that business model by forcing Apple, which has a market value of US$2.7 trillion, to offer users more choices around how apps can tap in to the hardware that Apple designs.
The 88-page lawsuit, filed in US federal court in Newark, New Jersey, said it was focused on “freeing smartphone markets from Apple’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct and restoring competition to lower smartphone prices for consumers, reducing fees for developers, and preserving innovation for the future.”
The Justice Department seeks to define the market as that of smartphones in the United States, where most analysts believe Apple has slightly more than half of the market. Apple representatives said they will try to persuade the court to define the market as the global smartphone market, where the iPhone has only one-fifth of consumers.