The Department of Justice’s antitrust division has come into its own, having filed its third tech monopoly lawsuit in four years.
The accumulated experience shows up in the complaint, according to antitrust experts who spoke with The Verge about the complaint filed Thursday accusing Apple of violating antitrust law. The DOJ describes a sweeping arc of behaviors by Apple, arguing that it adds up to a pattern of illegal monopoly maintenance. Rather than focusing on two or three illegal acts, the complaint alleges that Apple engages in a pattern of behaviors that further entrench consumers into their ecosystem and make it harder to switch, even in the face of high prices and degraded quality.
↫ Lauren Feiner at The Verge
It’s been somewhat entertaining seeing Apple fanatics claim the complaint is bad, horrible, has no merit, has no chance in court, and that the DoJ has zero clue what it’s doing – while actual experts are actually positively surprised by how the complaint seems better than they expected.
I wonder whose judgement to trust more.
Personally, I trust John Gruber. If it involves Apple, I just check whether he thinks it’s good or bad and instantly know it’s the opposite.
I’m 100% sure Apple engages in tons of astroturfing. Recently the iphone CPU throttling lawsuit was back in the news, and there were comments everywhere trying to distract away from the truth and blatantly rig seo rankings with keywords to make the original information much harder to find.