Justice Department, states accuse Apple of holding a smartphone monopoly [View all]

[brooklynite]

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Source: Washington Post

The Justice Department and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of breaking federal antitrust law in a sprawling lawsuit unveiled Thursday, plunging the tech giant into another high-stakes showdown over its alleged abuse of power.
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The civil complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleges the company has illegally wielded a monopoly over the smartphone market by cutting off developers and stifling competitors with punitive restrictions. The lawsuit squarely takes aim at the company’s most popular and lucrative product, the iPhone, which has helped catapult Apple’s valuation to over $2.7 trillion and sell its devices to billions of users.

Instead of competing with rivals by offering more affordable services, federal and state enforcers claim Apple imposed “a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions” to “extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives.”

Through that conduct, the Justice Department and states allege in the complaint, Apple “built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly.” Enforcers and legislators have long expressed concern that by rigidly curating users’ experiences on the iPhone and its other gadgets, Apple has excluded rivals from its ecosystem — giving the company an unfair leg up on competitors.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/21/apple-doj-antitrust-lawsuit-smartphone/