Supreme Court deals Apple massive blow by allowing antitrust lawsuit to proceed against tech giant’s monopoly over iPhone apps
by: JD Heyes
NaturalNews.com
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
In an age where just a few companies have control over nearly all of the technology market, it was only a matter of time before consumers got some legal relief from their monopolistic practices.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a consumer-driven antitrust lawsuit against behemoth Apple can proceed regarding its exclusive control over the iPhone apps marketplace, potentially cutting massively into the company’s portion of billions of dollars in sales of software.
As The Wall Street Journal reports:
Plaintiffs, who are suing on behalf of a class of app purchasers, allege consumers pay inflated prices because Apple requires that all phone software be sold and purchased through the company’s App Store. Apps would be cheaper if software developers could sell them directly and bypass Apple as a middleman, the lawsuit alleges.
In most cases, Apple extracts a 30-percent cut of all apps that it sells. In addition, Apple receives 15 percent of subscriptions that are sold via its App Store after a subscriber’s first year as a member.
The suit contends that other App Store rules affect pricing as well like the company’s mandate that every app price point end in “99 cents.” That means app developers can only establish prices in increments of a dollar, such as $1.99, etc.
The high court concentrated mostly on a principal issue: Whether consumers had standing to sue Apple over the practices. And in a narrow 5-4 ruling authored by the court’s newest member, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a majority of justices said yes.
Apple argued that consumers should not be permitted to sue the company because app developers are the ones who set prices.
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