By Elizabeth Troutman |
The Arizona attorney general joined the Justice Department and 15 other state and district Attorneys General in suing Apple for monopolization or attempted monopolization of smartphone markets.
Filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, the civil antitrust lawsuit holds that Apple illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones by selectively imposing contractual restrictions on and withholding critical access points from developers.
“Apple undermines apps, products, and services that would otherwise make users less reliant on the iPhone, promote interoperability, and lower costs for consumers and developers,” the news release says.
Apple’s monopoly power allows it to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, according to the news release. The lawsuit aims to restore competition to the market.
Apple generated annual net revenues of $383 billion and net income of $97 billion in fiscal year 2023. Apple’s net income exceeds any other company in the Fortune 500 and the gross domestic products of more than 100 countries.
The complaint says that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone and performance smartphones markets. It uses its control over the iPhone to engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct, maximizing revenue, the complaint continues.
Apple’s anticompetitive course of conduct includes blocking innovative super apps, suppressing mobile cloud streaming services, excluding cross platform messaging apps, diminishing the functionality of non-apple smart watches, and limiting third party digital wallet apps.
Other alleged illegal conduct includes affecting web browsers, video communication, news subscriptions, entertainment, automotive services, advertising, location services, and more.
In 2021, Arizona State Rep. Regina Cobb tried to fight the “anti-competitive and monopolistic practices of Big Tech” by passing a bill targeting Apple’s fees by requiring companies that run app stores with over a million downloads per year to allow apps to offer alternative payment processors.
But House Bill 2005 disappeared before a scheduled vote that could have sent it straight to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
Cobb said at the time that the fight to lower costs for businesses and consumers is far from over.
“I will never be intimidated by Silicon Valley and their bully tactics,” she said. “In fact, Big Tech’s desperation to kill HB 2005 has calcified my opinion that checking their monopoly power is more important than ever.”
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
