I think this
article does a pretty good job of explaining why Google lost their case by Apple won theirs, but unfortunately it's behind a paywall. Here's the key point:
In other words, Google’s was trying to have its cake and eat it too. It was saying it was the "open" choice that allowed competition, but its practices, such as exclusive agreements and restrictive policies, effectively limited competition, which the jury found to be anticompetitive. In contrast, Apple’s closed ecosystem was a known characteristic that customers actively chose, and therefore did not violate antitrust laws in the same way.
Correct! That is to say that "monopolies" are not illegal in and of themselves. There are natural monopolies, gained monopolies, and legal monopolies.
Quoting the FTC: "
it is not illegal for a company to have a monopoly, to charge "high prices," or to try to achieve a monopoly position by what might be viewed by some as particularly aggressive methods."
That said, as far as a businesses monopoly is concerned, the interpretation has been that: "
The law is violated [section 2, Sherman Act] only if the company tries to maintain or acquire a monopoly through unreasonable methods."
So this should be easy then, right -- every arm chair expert should be shouting, "Apple
unreasonably maintains their monopoly by not allowing any other App Store on the iOS platform. There! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Break open the App store! Huzzah!"
Well, there is case history already on this. Of which, typically no one wants to care about because: "Who cares. If they aren't an abusive monopoly -- then their actions are anti-competitive or whatever, it's corporate greed gone wild." And you know, that's actually not an unreasonable argument.
But, the case history and precedence from former lawsuits does matter -- leading to (Apple v Google) Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's decision that Apple was not unreasonable or abusive in their maintenance of their monopoly. Only the anti-steering provision of the developers agreement was deemed unenforceable. Ruling that Apple had to allow developers to be able to link to their own website offer subscription sales. Non-subscription sales maybe included too, but I'm not sure.
However, Apple very reasonably sees that as a chick in the armor. And so as a corporate decision (or maybe just a Tim Cook decision alone) they decided that they'd charge 27% on these out-of-app purchases and institute those "scare screens" when clicking the links.
This is where my 'faux' legal understand starts to fall apart: This may have been address as part of the original case or maybe it was addressed in the follow up (i don't know). I suppose it can be argued that under the auspice that the sale would have never happened otherwise Apple can plausibility derive that 27%.
But either way the judge wasn't having it and, here is the kicker: Now Apple has "
unreasonably" maintained it's monopoly. They were told they had to allow the links. And maybe they were told they couldn't derive any fees from those sales. But, Apple did charge 27% and did try to scare users who clicked on those links. So the judge has brought down hellfire on Apple for it.
www.theverge.com
