Florida Governor and possible future presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Monday that prevents social media companies from banning political candidates from their services for Florida users for more than 14 days. Meanwhile, Indian police paid a visit to Twitter's offices in New Delhi after the company labeled a political leader's tweet as " misleading."Īpologies to my censor. Google is suing the regulatory agency over the demands. Russia's communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has given Google one day to strike what it describes as prohibited content from its services, or else it will fine the company up to $54,000 and slow its Internet service speeds. Apple also rolled out iOS 14.6, which includes security fixes and updates related to podcast subscriptions and lossless audio features. The company released a macOS update that closes a security hole that would otherwise allow hackers to hijack people's cameras to take surreptitious recordings and screenshots. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the Attorney General for Washington, D.C., is suing Amazon over anticompetitive pricing practices. German antitrust regulators have added Alphabet to the list of tech companies, like Facebook, that it is investigating over possible abuses of market power. Apple isn't the only company facing antitrust issues. However Judge Gonzalez Rogers rules, one thing is almost certain: Appeals will lengthen the saga.Īntitrust is earned, not given. Such a narrowed ruling would reduce the impact to Apple’s overall business, and it might help to appease a particularly aggrieved segment of app store developers-even if it offers cold comfort to other discontents, such as Match Group, Netflix, and Spotify, alongside countless smaller fish. I suspect the court will apply this tweak only to the mobile gaming market, another idea Judge Gonzalez Rogers has floated. It’s a possibility that Judge Gonzalez Rogers has alluded to during the proceedings, and it nods at judicial precedents from earlier cases involving American Express and railroads. If you held a Fortnite “ boogie bomb” to this columnist’s head and asked for his prediction, he would say this: Apple will be forced to ease up on its ban against developers advertising alternative payment options in the app store. Epic, meanwhile, has been pulling out all the stops to argue that Apple’s tight grip on the app store is anticompetitive, greedy, and overbearing. Apple has been trying mightily to persuade everyone that it faces stiff competition from other app stores and device makers, like Google’s Android and Samsung, thereby justifying its app store rent-taking. “If there was real competition, that number would move-and it hasn’t.” (After litigation commenced, Apple reduced the fee for certain transactions to 15%, including for small developers and for subscription revenues that recur after the first year, a move later copied by Google.)įundamentally, the question at the heart of the case is how one defines the market in which Apple supposedly competes it is the classic monopolist’s dilemma. “The 30% number has been there since the inception,” she said at one point, referring to Apple’s general cut of digital payments. At one point, she pressed the company on its apparent stranglehold over the app store. “It is a pretty significant step that courts haven’t done.”īut Judge Gonzalez Rogers likely won’t let Apple get off scot-free. “Can you find me a single antitrust case where the type of relief you are requesting”-that is, forcing a large company to substantially alter its business or, specifically, in this case, making Apple host multiple app stores on its devices-”has been granted by a court?” she once asked Epic’s counsel, as reported by the Financial Times. She is looking to antitrust case law, and she appears reluctant to hand either Apple or Epic an easy victory.įor one thing, it’s unlikely that Judge Gonzalez Rogers will upend Apple’s business. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the case, has offered some hints about her thinking. While there’s no knowing which way the court will side in the legal spat, U.S. The two companies have been duking it out ever since, leading up to Monday’s “hot tub” session, which saw a debate-style close to the trial proceedings instead of the usual closing arguments. Epic filed suit, alleging that Apple was abusing its market power. At that time, Apple promptly ejected Fortnite from the iPhone app store. The fight erupted in August, when Epic updated the iOS version of Fortnite, its popular video game, with a “hot fix” to route around Apple’s 30% take on in-app payments.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |