Italy's antitrust agency opens probe into allegations that Apple and Samsung used software updates to slow phones and induce customers to buy newer models
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's antitrust body said on Thursday it had opened a probe into allegations that Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics …
Context & Ripple Effects
This January 2018 probe is the opening move in what becomes a sustained campaign by Italy's AGCM against Apple's software and platform conduct. By October of the same year the regulator converts the investigation into €5M fines against both Apple and Samsung over the throttling complaints, plus an additional €5M on Apple alone for failing to give users clear information about battery replacement.
The throttling case also sets the template for the agency's later work: subsequent AGCM investigations target Apple's exemption of its own apps from App Tracking Transparency, its suspected curbs on non-official Beats headphone resellers alongside Amazon, and eventually a DMA interoperability probe into iOS cloud services.
First-order effects
- Apple and Samsung must now defend their software-update practices before Italy's antitrust authority, with the immediate exposure being fines and a mandated explanation of why updates degraded phone performance.
Second-order effects
- A finding against either vendor forces changes to how updates are disclosed and tested across the EU's national regulators, since the same throttling allegations travel easily between jurisdictions once one authority validates them.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and the AGCM's later probes into Apple's ATT exemptions, Beats distribution, and DMA interoperability suggest it does — national competition authorities become the primary enforcement layer for smartphone platform conduct, long before EU-level digital rules fully bite.
The trend: European national competition regulators are shifting from one-off consumer complaints to systematic, repeat scrutiny of how Apple and Samsung use software control over devices to shape upgrade behavior.