Justice Department Sues Apple, Claiming Illegal Monopoly Over Smartphone Market

deadline.com:

The Justice Department and more than a dozen state attorneys general have sued Apple, claiming that the tech giant has an illegal monopoly over the smartphone market.

Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters this morning that Apple “has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits, but by violating federal antitrust law.

Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law.” He said that Apple’s share of the performance smartphone market exceeds 70%.

In the lawsuit, the Justice Department and the states claim that “rather than respond to competitive threats by offering lower smartphone prices to consumers or better monetization for developers, Apple would meet competitive threats by imposing a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions in its App Store guidelines and developer agreements that would allow Apple to extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives,” the Justice Department said in its lawsuit. “It has deployed this playbook across many technologies, products, and services, including super apps, text messaging, smartwatches, and digital wallets, among many others.” Read the Apple antitrust lawsuit.