WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of 16 states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple today for maintaining a monopoly in the smartphone market.
Sumit Sharma, senior researcher for tech competition at Consumer Reports, said, “Apple has been an outlier in its willingness to make changes to products and services to the benefit of consumers and developers. We’ve seen Apple limit access to hardware and software for competing services and products like smartwatches and contactless payments, and that’s harmed innovation and competition. Apple claims to be a champion of protecting user data, but its app store fee structure and partnership with Google search erode privacy.
“We applaud the Justice Department’s action against Apple today. It is critical that the U.S. join regulators and competition authorities worldwide to make Apple change the way it does business.” Sharma said.
This is the third time that the Justice Department has sued Apple for antitrust violations in the past 14 years. Consumer Reports wrote in an op-ed for USA Today about the anticompetitive practices Apple and Google deploy to dominate the smartphone marketplace.
Media contact: Cyrus Rassool, cyrus.rassool@consumer.org