Do the Feds Have a Case Against Apple?

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
It seems like every few months the FTC or the DoJ is investigating Apple for something or another but there never seems to be any action taken. Personally, I think we are wasting tax dollars on these investigations that never turn into anything. The government needs to either take action or leave them the hell alone.

The concern stems from Apple banning developers from using advertising in their iPhone applications that shares analytic data with "an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple."
Click to expand...
 
Well, perhaps they wanted to go after Apple before, but didn't feel they could make a sure bet case. Now, Apple just keep pushing their luck, and eventually the investigation might conclude with "We can win now, they crossed the line." First it was the 'you can't even use competing products to compile programs for iphones' and now it's 'now that we're in the ad business you can't use competing ad companies for your program'.
 
I think they just like to take on the biggest dog, to prove they can. They kept it up with MS for quite a while. Now it's Apples' turn.
 
Nobody likes other people/corporates to be too successful. If you are too good someone always calls Hacks. and sometimes there are using hacks. But in this case I think Apple is just using America's stupidity to their advantage which isn't really hacks.
 
Big surprise, apple doesn't want apps on their system that can give valuable data to competitors.
 
They might have one, but they ought not to. Antitrust is anti-capitalist nonsense.
 
Apple wants to be like MS, maybe a good investigation will stop that superiority complex Jobs seems to have.I agree though, either do something or stop investigating, Most of the government is a waste of taxpayers money though.
 
I think they do actually have something this time. Keep in mind that Google's purchase of AdMob only flew because of iAd (a source of competition in the mobile advertising marketplace). With the new terms effectively prohibiting Google/AdMod from being successful in that market by limiting their capability to do analytics, it gets very problematic.

In the past there have been some gray areas, but this is a pretty blatant issue. Requiring developers to only utilize iOS's native APIs to sell software in the App Store — not a real issue. Apple's really abusing their position on this one, however, and I personally hope they take Apple to task on it.
 
Just because there is no charges pressed or prosecution does not mean there is nothing good coming out of this. When a company gets dangerously close to breaking the law it is prudent to run investigations to make sure no laws are broken and to remind the company to be aware of its actions.
 
badcaps said:
They might have one, but they ought not to. Antitrust is anti-capitalist nonsense.
Click to expand...

Which is why you'd be fine if Microsoft said 'We aren't going to allow OpenOffice to run anymore, Just have it pop up an ad for Microsoft Office instead." Maybe Google should just redirect any search terms for iphone/windows mobile/webos/blackberry to an ad for an Android phone.

Would you really be ok with all that, or just when Apple is the one unfairly blocking competition?
 
Awww.... too bad so sad. Someone makes a good product, someone else doesn't compete, they just bitch to the government...
 
Well considering Apple is Evil, more so than Microsoft ever was, and now is bigger than Microsoft.. I am not surprised.

(if you define Evil in the ways Microsoft was accused of being)
 
does it really matter? All apple is doing is removing developers from their ecosystem. eventually the developer pool will become stagnet. Android/WinMo/Whoever should be catering to these exiled developers and diversifying their developer pool.
 
Well, not doing anything is a great way to establish a pattern of misconduct. Just sit back and watch Apple destroy itself, then when you have enough evidence you take em down.
 
Or they will suddenly allow third party advertising so the fed's will drop the investigation again.
 
Apple is so lame. I've never seen a company block technology more than them. I really think Jobs has some psychological problems.
 
Ualdayan said:
Which is why you'd be fine if Microsoft said 'We aren't going to allow OpenOffice to run anymore, Just have it pop up an ad for Microsoft Office instead." Maybe Google should just redirect any search terms for iphone/windows mobile/webos/blackberry to an ad for an Android phone.

Would you really be ok with all that, or just when Apple is the one unfairly blocking competition?
Click to expand...

badcaps said:
Antitrust is anti-capitalist nonsense.
Click to expand...

Was that not broad and clear enough for you? Do you really need clarification or are you just in a state of shock that not everybody is an economic interventionist liberal?
 
Paraphased from a lawyer friend of mine on this subject:

The DoJ's conviction (sanction is the correct word) rate when they open an investigation like this is 93%.

Meaning, when the DoJ officially opens an investigation on you, they already pretty much have the case against you mounted because 93% of the time it results in sanctions. 66% of the time it results in MAJOR sanctions.

HOWEVER, it can take up to 10 years before the sanctions eventually come down, such as was with MS, which took 12 years.

--

A 93% success rate doesn't sound like a waste of tax money to me.
 
Steve said:
The government needs to either take action or leave them the hell alone.
Click to expand...

The goverment can't take action without first investigating to see if action is warranted. They also can't simply leave them alone. They don't have the luxury of saying "Since the last few investigations didn't turn up anything solid, we're not going to investigate them for anything anymore."
 
remember when MS was the most evilest company ever for bundling IE with windows and they were up on antitrust charges for that?

good thing apple doesn't do anything like that. phew
 
iansilv said:
Awww.... too bad so sad. Someone makes a good product, someone else doesn't compete, they just bitch to the government...
Click to expand...
This is kind of the opposite problem, isn't it? People want to contribute to the success of the Apple platform, but it's closed to them. Apple is preventing them from competing with other app developers on that platform.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top