Apple May Face Antitrust Inquiry

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from the NY Post: "According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools. Regulators, this person said, are days away from making a decision about which agency will launch the inquiry. It will focus on whether the policy, which took effect last month, kills competition by forcing programmers to choose between developing apps that can run only on Apple gizmos or come up with apps that are platform-neutral, and can be used on a variety of operating systems, such as those from rivals Google, Microsoft, and Research In Motion. An inquiry doesn't necessarily mean action will be taken against Apple, which argues the rule is in place to ensure the quality of the apps it sells to customers. Typically, regulators initiate inquiries to determine whether a full-fledged investigation ought to be launched. If the inquiry escalates to an investigation, the agency handling the matter would issue Apple a subpoena seeking information about the policy."

Comments

It makes sense

[0xdeadbeef]

Apple is the new Microsoft, after all.

Re:They don't even have the most popular smart pho

[shadowrat]

Exactly! That's what's so insidious about Apple! They are the only company that makes iPhones. If you want an iPhone, you HAVE to go to Apple! They won't let Microsoft or Google make iPhones so they hold all the cards! It's a monopoly!

Re:It will save apple a lot of money

[GodfatherofSoul]

I don't know what's scarier; that a foreigner knows more about our government than the average citizen or that our "lobbyism plague" has sprouted boils ugly and red enough to be seen from across an ocean.

OT? I hate Comcast

[osgeek]

They're looking into the development tools allowed on one type of smart phone, and Comcast is allowed to get away with their shenanigans on a day-to-day basis? I watch my legitimate torrents die on the vine because Comcast doesn't like the content, then on the TV side, I have to rescan my DTV channels every month to figure out if CNN is on digital channel 86-112 or 25-8 or whatever... because Comcast doesn't want to publish their channel mappings since that would get less box rentals into homes and less pay per view orders.

As you can see from my sig, the money government spends is annoying. What they choose to spend it on is devastating.