Diane Bartz and Sheila Dang for Reuters:
Eight state attorneys general met with U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Thursday to discuss the effect of big tech companies on competition, and various antitrust actions are being reviewed, the Texas attorney general’s office said in a statement.
The bipartisan group held discussions centered on “big tech companies stifling competition on the internet,” the statement said. The other participants were not named, although four other states have been identified as having attended.
“It was a productive meeting and we’re considering a range of possible antitrust actions against such companies,” the statement said.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it was opening a broad investigation of major digital technology firms. While it did not identify them the agency appeared to reference Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc, and potentially Apple Inc.
New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sent a representative to the Thursday meeting, and Florida was also present, according to a spokeswoman. Mississippi was at the meeting, a source said privately, and Politico reported that an official from Louisiana was there.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, Apple does not have anything close to a monopoly in any market in which they compete.
Let the vultures pick apart the Googles and Facebooks of the world was viciously as they wish.
What Apple has to fear — in spite of MDN’s general denial — is its “monopoly” in the apps which a user may install on the single-most-significant-platform in the world. Cries of “if they want freedom, they should have purchased an Android,” will turn to bite Apple when politicians (greedy for power and media attention) start pointing their uninformed fingers. The only real defense Apple can (and will) offer is security-via-protectionism (actually, protecting users from themselves). While this writer agrees with the value of Apple’s walled-garden, we may very well lose it if the politicians can’t (or won’t) see the value of privacy and protectionism being the ONLY way this can happen.
This is precisely why Apple has been so vocal recently, about the privacy issue (as an inalienable right). It’s the only real appeal they can make to the Government.
Government will want to assert their own needs for access to all data. Beware!
A hole in one!
Does this mean GM can now sell cars they make and label them as Fords?? Cause Ford can’t have control of the Ford market???
No, but if Ford got into the gasoline business and started making their cars in such a way that “in the name of purity,” they would only run on gasoline purchased from Ford company-owned gas stations, well you get the idea…