As regulators continue to move at a glacial pace, Axios reports that companies themselves are subjecting rivals to charges of unfair monopolies to disrupt Big Tech market dominance.
First established as the Sherman Act in 1890, antitrust laws were put into place to allow the government to set up roadblocks to neutralize major monopolistic behavior.
In 2016, we saw Walmart file an antitrust suit against the “big three” tuna providers (Chicken of the Sea, StarKist, and BumbleBee) over fixing canned-tuna prices.
But wait, there’s more…
The tech powerhouse is getting caught up on both sides of the coin.
In a private antitrust action of sorts, The NYT and WaPo told Apple to “kick rocks” when it asked the storied news publications to join Apple’s news service that offers access to a variety of publications for a fixed price of $9.99.
Of course, it’s the 50% cut of each publication’s subscription revenue demanded by Apple that the news producers are balking at.
Then yesterday, Apple and Qualcomm settled their two years-long tussle over the 5% royalty the chip-making giant was netting on all iPhone sales — a move Apple has long called an unfair monopoly due to the company’s chip-making prowess.
Last month it was Spotify that filed a complaint against Apple for its insane 30% tax on app store purchases (yes, the same reason Apple sued Qualcomm).
This comes after a group of iPhone users sued Apple for the exact same thing.