Apple Antitrust

Apple offered Amazon lower App Store fees to convince it to launch its Prime Video app on the ‌App Store‌ and Apple TV, documents published by the U.S. antitrust subcommittee have revealed. According to email correspondence between Apple's services chief Eddy Cue and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple struck a deal to bring Amazon Prime Video into the ‌App Store‌ by agreeing to take a 15% revenue...

Apple is facing another antitrust complaint in Europe, this time from the developers of encrypted messaging app Telegram. In a complaint to the EU Commission, the app's creators argue that Apple must give iOS users the opportunity to download software outside of the App Store. The Financial Times reports: In a complaint to EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager, Telegram, which has more...

Apple CEO Tim Cook was, as expected, questioned about Apple's App Store policies during today's antitrust hearing with the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Cook primarily stuck to the talking points provided in his opening statement [PDF], but he did have some extra color to add. Cook was specifically questioned about email app "Hey" from Basecamp, which was at the center of a...

Apple in early 2019 removed or restricted many popular screen time and parental control apps on the App Store due to their use of Mobile Device Management, or MDM, which the company said put user security and privacy at risk. During today's antitrust hearing with the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, Cook was questioned about Apple's decision to remove the parental control apps,...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is today testifying in an antitrust hearing with the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, where he was questioned about Apple's App Store policies. Cook was hit with complaints from developers that the committee has spoken to. Apple was accused of making its ‌App Store‌ rules unavailable to developers, arbitrarily enforcing those rules, changing them at will,...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is today participating in an antitrust hearing with the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee alongside Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The hearing was supposed to kick off at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time or 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time, but it was delayed for a half hour to an hour. It can be watched live through the...

As Apple CEO Tim Cook prepares to speak in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee tomorrow, his opening statement has been made available. [PDF] Cook will say that Apple does "not have a dominant market share" in any market where it does business, and that consumers have many other choices when it comes to smartphones. "As much as we believe the iPhone provides the best...

Airbnb and ClassPass have claimed that Apple's demand to take a cut of online sales was wrong, reports The New York Times. ClassPass helps users to book classes at local gyms, but due to the global situation, they were forced to move their business online and offer virtual classes instead. ClassPass claims that it received a "concerning" message from Apple stating that a 30 percent...

Apple chief Tim Cook and other big tech CEOs will participate in a rescheduled antitrust hearing on Wednesday. The hearing to be held by the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee was supposed to happen on Monday, but it was postponed to avoid a conflict with a memorial service for the late representative John Lewis. Cook is expected to join Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google...

An antitrust hearing held by the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee where Apple chief Tim Cook was set to join other big tech CEOs is likely to be postponed, according to a report on Thursday. The hearing involving Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was supposed to happen next Monday, but two sources told CNBC that it was ...

Apple and Amazon are under investigation by Italy's antitrust regulator over allegations that the two companies have been blocking the sale of Apple and Beats devices to resellers in order to stifle competition (via Reuters). The L'Autorit Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) is looking into the allegation, which has been made by legal but unauthorized resellers who could...

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are all set to participate in an antitrust hearing next Monday held by the United States House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation on competition in digital markets. Ahead of the hearing, the committee spoke with Microsoft president and...

Apple CEO Tim Cook will participate in an antitrust hearing held by the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on Monday, July 27 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time, the Judiciary Committee announced today. The hearing is part of an ongoing U.S. antitrust investigation that involves competition in digital markets. The hearing, labeled "Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the...

Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to testify in an upcoming antitrust hearing with the U.S. House judiciary antitrust subcommittee, chairman David Cicilline said today in an interview with Kara Swisher. According to Cicilline, Apple CEO ‌Tim Cook‌, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet (Google) CEO Sundar Pichai, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos will all appear at the antitrust hearing set to take place in ...

As part of an ongoing antitrust inquiry into Apple's App Store policies, U.S. antitrust regulators are looking into the 30 percent cut that Apple takes from in-app subscriptions, reports Bloomberg. Government lawyers have been meeting with developers over the course of the last several months, and in meetings as recent as last week, developers have been asked questions about Apple's...

Antitrust regulators are currently investigating competition in digital marketplaces, focusing on Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple. Microsoft is not involved in the investigation, but Microsoft joined the conversation today when president Brad Smith said at a Politico event (via Bloomberg) that it's time for regulators to take a look at app stores. Smith was careful not to name Apple or...

Apple's App Store fees are akin to "highway robbery," Representative David Cicilline told The Verge in the latest Vergecast episode. Cicilline, who is the Chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Antitrust looking into the App Store agreements that Apple has with developers, spoke to The Verge alongside Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, developer of the "Hey" app that Apple rejected...

As part of an ongoing probe of competition in digital markets that involves Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee this week sent a letter to each company demanding to know whether their CEOs will testify in hearings set to take place in July, reports Axios. The antitrust investigators want to know by Sunday whether Apple, Google parent company Alphabet,...

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek today told Bloomberg that he expects Apple to further "open up" in long term following the antitrust complaint Spotify filed with the European Union last year. In the complaint, Spotify said that Apple enforces App Store rules that "purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience," and that Apple acts as "both a player and referee to...

France's competition watchdog on Monday fined Apple 1.1 billion euros ($1.23 billion) for anti-competitive behavior in its distribution network and an abuse of economic dependence on its resellers, reports Reuters. At the same time, France's Competition Authority also levied fines of $84.7 million and $69 million against Apple wholesalers Tech Data and Ingram Micro for their roles in the...