Mike Wuerthele
A new report claims that the US Department of Justice is in the "late stages" of investigating Apple and a wide-ranging complaint will be filed soon, but how — or if — it will all play out isn't actually clear.
Apple has reportedly been under investigation by the Department of Justice for about four years, and to date, nothing has happened. A report on Friday afternoon claims that a filing may happen soon — or it may not.
The report, by the New York Times on Friday, citing three people familiar with the matter, say that a case may be filed as soon as the first half of this year. This "case filing soon" refrain has been common across similar reports for over five years, however.
Two of the unnamed sources say that senior leaders in the Justice Department are reviewing the investigation materials. The same sources say agency officials have met with Apple officials as recently as December as part of the investigative process.
The December meeting was likely about the tail-end of the Beeper saga, where Apple chose to limit a third party's access to iMessage servers. Ultimately, Beeper took one final action to provide as much bridged access as possible but took no further action.
The report on Friday even claims an imminent filing some escape room.
"No final decision has been made about whether a lawsuit should be filed or what it should include, and Apple has not had a final meeting with the Justice Department in which it can make its case to the government before a lawsuit is filed," the report says.
The report also says that if the Department of Justice decides to take action, it will be determined after it sees how Apple responds to European Union regulations and mandates. So far, it has already complied with the USB-C universal charger mandate, and a deadline for allowing third-party App Stores is approaching in 2024.
Four and a half years of imminent anti-trust action
It's unclear why this report is different than the last several times decisive action by the Department of Justice was said to happen soon.
In early 2023, it was claimed that the Justice Department was drafting an antitrust complaint against Apple. That complaint was reportedly about anti-competitive behavior by as it pertained to the App Store.
In August 2022, a complaint was said to be focused on complaints from tracker manufacturer Tile. That, too, has appeared to go nowhere as of yet, despite sources at the time saying that Department of Justice action was imminent.
Going back to 2021, the Department of Justice was examining how Apple was treating the Roblox developers. The complaint there was similar to Epic's and Apple's commission on in-app purchases and the inability to spin up a third-party App Store. This complaint was also said to be nearing completion, at this point, more than two years ago.
In June 2020, Department of Justice members and a coalition of state attorneys general spoke to several companies who believed Apple engages in anti-competitive behavior. It's unclear where that particular matter went or if it will be folded into a different complaint.
The originating event for this entire saga was in 2019. In October of 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee had asked Spotify to provide information on Apple's alleged anti-competitive behavior, and specifically how it pertains to Spotify's business. Spotify had alleged that Apple "gives themselves unfair advantages at every turn."
Wesley Hilliard
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72 Comments
We all know the DOJ was waiting for the outcome in the Epic vs Apple case. Now that Apple has won their case and the appeal the DOJ won’t move forward.
I wish the DOJ would leave Apple alone. Apple is NOT a monopoly. If you add up the market share of all of their "computing" devices (if you added up all macOS, iOS, iPadOS devices as a total), they are hovering in the 20% to 30% range, as is Microsoft and Google in terms of OS's. But in terms of market share of desktops/laptops, or just the smartphones, or just the tablets, then Apple has a much small market share. Apple just has MANY different OSs due to the various products they make and their differentiation between them.
Yeah, why would a computer company have to sell their OS to OEMs? There's no law about that. that's like telling a car company, you have to sell your drive train to OEMs, because you're selling too many cars under your own brand.
People are not held to only being able to use Apple devices. I know people that have an Android, Apple and Windows based products and they don't have a problem using it. Sure, we might get certain features, but the main attraction to all devices by one company is usability/ease of use and support.
If a customer wants to switch to another smartphone brand, they can, anytime they want to. no one is forcing them to stick with Apple.
As far as the App Store, it just makes sense for Apple to have their App Store, Microsoft has theirs that serves THEIR platforms, and Google has theirs to serve THEIR platform. That's what customers want. They want EASE of getting, managing the apps they use. The only issue is just battling between the App developers on how much they have to give up for one company to manage the App Store.
Every few months, the DOJ anti-trust division managers surely come together and game out if they can win an antitrust court case against Apple. And after each get together, the answer is no. Why they want to talk about this in public, who knows.
They are surely just tracking that iPhone marketshare number. If it rises above a certain number, they will launch the suit. What that number is, is anyone's guess? 65%? Apple is also watching that number and gaming out what policies they should have as well.
Everyone appears quite comfortable with MS owning the office automation and operating systems to the tune of 80 to 90% share. And MS segments Office features such that it pushes and maintains their operating system share, basically since the 1980s.
I wish we as a people of United States of America file law suit against DOJ for wasting tax dollars.