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BUSINESS EYE MARCH 29, 2024 | The Indian Eye 39

TECH T@LK

US sues tech giant Apple for “monopolizing” smartphone market

OUR BUREAU compete, as reported by Al Jazeera.
The Biden administration’s antitrust push has
Washington, DC
already taken aim at corporate behemoths such as
he United States Department of Justice Google and Amazon, alongside unsuccessful bids
(DOJ) has filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block acquisition deals by Microsoft and Face-
Tagainst the tech giant Apple, accusing the book parent Meta Platforms.
company of “stifling” competition to boost its rev- Meanwhile, Apple has disputed that charac-
enues and “illegally monopolizing” the US smart- terization and said that it would “vigorously” de-
phone market, Al Jazeera reported. fend itself against the suit, which it called “wrong
The 88-page suit was filed on Thursday in a on the facts and the law”.
New Jersey federal court with 16 state and dis- The California-based company has faced
trict attorneys general joining the Department of growing scrutiny from anti-monopoly enforcement
Justice. bodies in Europe, Japan and South Korea.
At issue is Apple’s most popular product, the Apple, a company with annual revenues of about USD 400 Apple, a company with annual revenues of
iPhone, which is the linchpin of the company’s billion, has long promoted the strict integration between its about USD 400 billion, has long promoted the
USD 2.7 trillion valuation. With more than a bil- strict integration between its products and soft-
lion users, Apple has manipulated its share of the products and software (File photo) ware, an approach sometimes referred to as a
market to undermine competitors’ products and “walled garden”.
advantage its own, according to the DOJ. es because companies violate the antitrust laws,” The company argues that this helps give users
Instead of competing with rivals by offering US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a a more seamless experience, but the DOJ said on
more affordable services, federal and state author- statement. “If left unchallenged, Apple will only Thursday that the corporation has achieved its gar-
ities allege that Apple imposed “a series of shape- continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.” gantuan status in part by flouting antitrust laws.
shifting rules and restrictions” to “extract higher Notably, the suit marks the most ambitious “Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Apple account-
fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or de- antitrust effort by the Biden administration so far, able and ensure it cannot deploy the same, unlaw-
graded user experience, and throttle competitive which has promised to roll back corporate consoli- ful playbook in other vital markets,” he added.
alternatives.” dation in sectors such as technology that critics say Following the development, Apple’s stock price
“Consumers should not have to pay higher pric- have made it all but impossible for smaller rivals to fell by little over 3 per cent, Al Jazeera reported.

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