Sources: the US DOJ plans to sue Apple as soon as Thursday, accusing the company of violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing iPhone features
- Lawsuit to be filed in federal court as soon as Thursday — Case comes as iPhone maker also faces scrutiny in Europe
The case matters because it puts iPhone feature access—not simply a single app or transaction—at the center of US competition scrutiny, while Apple is also facing regulatory attention in Europe.
First-order effects
Apple faces the prospect of a federal antitrust case focused on how it governs access to iPhone capabilities; the DOJ would have to establish that those restrictions unlawfully exclude rivals.
Rivals seeking access to iPhone features gain a formal enforcement channel, although no access change follows merely from a planned filing.
Second-order effects
The suit raises the stakes for Apple’s product and developer-access policies, as the company must defend technical and business restrictions in court alongside European scrutiny.
If courts accept that controlling device features can be an antitrust violation, platform competition policy could move further from app-distribution disputes toward scrutiny of operating-system-level access controls.
The outcome remains uncertain, but a DOJ case would help define whether US antitrust enforcement can compel changes to integrated mobile-platform design rather than only punish discrete conduct.
The trend: This is part of a broader shift toward regulating dominant digital platforms through the access rules embedded in their devices and operating systems.
I do not envy Apple PR this year. Every single release and the usual excitement around new products has been mixed with or even buried under a veritable torrent of regulation and lawsuit news.
sometimes I think about all the international drama we could have avoided if only Apple said “let's make iPhones work like Macs for installing apps” — https://www.bloomberg.com/... [image]
Between DOJ antitrust + DMA + unexciting Vision Pro + dead car project + China sales implosion + still-lingering Epic/YGR threat, I think we're entering the most challenging period in Apple's history since the mid-'90s, and this time there isn't an exiled founder waiting in the w…
Amen. Republican state attorneys general should join this bipartisan lawsuit to hold accountable trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolist Apple for its blatant market abuses. Like these AGs did with the Google search and ad-tech antitrust lawsuits. Free markets require functioning …
Can't wait for the Biden admin to beat up Apple for being rich and the Trump admin to beat them up for being woke Meanwhile app developers just want a better deal
Apple to be sued by US DOJ for antitrust as soon as tomorrow 👊 Their anti-competitive behaviour has stifled competition, innovation and the web worldwide. Apple should not be allowed to prevent the web from contesting their app store and services. Stay tuned!
Apple is collecting regulatory challenges. Those challenges are typically about real issues, but have so far made only limited impact. So far. Apple's multi-front war on regulators and developers could still go down as a historic case of hubris and/or shortsighted management.
“The Justice Department is poised to sue Apple Inc. as soon as Thursday, accusing the world's second most valuable tech company of violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features of its iPhone.” 👏https://finance.yahoo.com/ ...