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House antitrust committee ready to subpoena Apple CEO Tim Cook for big tech investigation

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Apple CEO Tim Cook will be served a subpoena to testify in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee if he refuses to willingly participate in an ongoing antitrust probe, the investigation's leader said on Friday.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), chair of the House's antitrust panel, in an interview with Bloomberg said he expects executives from Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook will volunteer testimony in the ongoing antitrust probe after their presence was requested in formal letters sent out last week.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai committed to appear before lawmakers in letters to the committee this week, though their involvement is conditioned on testimony from other executives involved in the inquiry, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos signaled intent to testify on Monday, while Apple has not yet agreed to make Cook available.

While Cicilline believes all four executives will offer testimony on their own volition, he said the committee will issue subpoenas to obtain the information it needs to come to a decision. Bezos, for example, was previously threatened with a subpoena before Amazon communicated a willingness to participate.

"We are going to get the documents and the witnesses we need to complete the investigation," Cicilline said on Friday in reference to Cook's testimony. "It is my hope that that will happen voluntarily, but it has always been the intention of the committee that if it does not happen voluntarily, that we will rely on compulsory process to do so."

The House Antitrust Subcommittee announced a bipartisan investigation into "platform gatekeepers" and "dominant" tech firms last year. Apple is being scrutinized for its App Store business, so-called "Sherlocking" of third-party apps and systematic removal of parental control apps, among other issues.

Controversy over App Store policies came to a head this week when Apple rejected updates to Basecamp's new Hey email app on the basis that the software failed to include an option for in-app purchases. Basecamp founders David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried subsequently spoke out against the decision on Twitter, in interviews and a via blog post posted to Hey's website.

Cicilline, who appeared alongside Heinemeier Hansson in an episode of The Vergecast podcast this week, called Apple's App Store fees "highway robbery." That sentiment was echoed in today's interview.

"This is very concerning that the use of the App Store, you know developers who are startups, are basically being forced to pay a ransom of 30% or they are denied access to that marketplace," he said. "And, you know, it's just coincidentally that Google and Apple arrive at the same thing, a third of the profit. [] And so for a developer, it puts them in the position of either you pay them the ransom or you go out of business or your app is not a success. That's a perfect example of an abuse of your market power to bully and exact unfair profits."

For its part, Apple says App Store guidelines are in place to cultivate a consistent consumer experience, not to generate excess profit. Critics, including some developers, view the Hey debacle as Apple chasing its customary 15% to 30% cut of App Store transactions.

"I get why there's a question here, but that's not what we're doing," Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller told TechCrunch on Thursday, adding that policies like in-app purchase requirements are designed to foster customer satisfaction.

Fried in a blog post today countered Apple by arguing in-app purchase restrictions hurt customer relations by erecting a false barrier between app makers and their users.

Despite the kerfuffle, Apple is not considering a rule change or exemption for Hey, Schiller said. Whether that stance will soften in the coming days remains to be seen. Apple is slated to host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference next week, a gathering often viewed as a celebration of the tech giant's relationship with third-party developers.



27 Comments

sdw2001 24 Years · 17463 comments

Apple and a bunch of the big tech companies are going to have a problem. To me, there is clear evidence of anti-trust issues amongst Apple, Facebook, Twitter and others. Let’s obviously not forget Google. It has nothing to do with politics. This isn’t even about censorship online. I support apple and think they are a great company. But their practices with their App Store are questionable. Google has a massive problem and I think it’s going to be the next standard oil. 

5 Likes · 0 Dislikes
mrochester 18 Years · 684 comments

For google and Facebook, split the advertising business away from the other businesses. For amazon split the marketplace away from their own shop and for Apple split the AppStore away from iOS. 

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes
davidlewis54 11 Years · 128 comments

This is more nonsense.  The US has a very odd way of being the land of the free and allowing entrepreneurs to flourish. When a business has grown, through its own efforts and imagination to make something world class, different and new, it apparently needs to be broken up.  If app. makers want to create apps which work on a particularly platform, obviously, it needs to pay for that.  If you don’t like the terms, do it sign up for it: you know the cost in advance.  Using a platform gives the app. usability, after all. It can also give the app. huge coverage.  If you rent a property for commercial use, you don’t expect the rent to go down if your business is successful.  The same applies to the other companies here.  In Google’s case, without its size it wouldn’t work as a search engine and Facebook wouldn’t work as a worldwide operation.  Amazon is the odd one out here but again it’s success is of its own making.  Amazon does destroy other businesses, often by undercutting the competition which the others do not do, but Amazon has been successful because of its fantastic service.  All these companies do use tax avoidance measures and cheap labour to keep costs down but that is the American way.

3 Likes · 0 Dislikes
davidlewis54 11 Years · 128 comments

‘Do’ in the fourth line should, of course, read ‘don’t’.

Rayz2016 9 Years · 6957 comments

‘Do’ in the fourth line should, of course, read ‘don’t’.

Just curious. Why didn’t you just edit it?