Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 10th Jun 2010 23:06 UTC
Legal "The row between Google and Apple over the strict iPhone analytics information sharing policies, which Google and its AdMob subsidiary claim unfairly shuts them out of iPhone and iPad advertising in favor of Apple's iAd, may face antitrust scrutiny. According to the Financial Times, US regulators are looking into the situation, though it's not yet clear if a formal investigation will happen."
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RE[5]: Comment by mtzmtulivu
by Boomshiki on Sat 12th Jun 2010 02:43 UTC in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by mtzmtulivu"
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"I'm not claiming that Apple are monopolists in the mobile phone market. Clearly they are not, not even in the smart-phone part of it.

They do have a monopoly in the iphone/ipad software distribution market, though. That's alright (these are Apple's products and they can lock them down in whatever way they like) but Apple can't use this position in order to gain an advantage in other markets (like advertising, content containers or development tools). That's what antitrust laws are about.

You could ask "what if they put advertising restrictions in their licenses right from the start". That's an interesting case. You could argue that the advertising market on iPhone didn't exist and Apple have simply made one (so there is no violation of antitrust law). This however is not true when the license is being changed on the fly to shape the existing market.

And Sony has a homogeneous distribution channel for the Playstation, PSP; and Microsoft for the XBox, or Nintendo for the Wii/Cube.

Your point?

Comparing Apple's policy with advertising with Xbox, would be more like if Microsoft sid "No more product placement on games for our console that is not Microsoft related.

It works out well for MS if in Need for Speed you drive past a Microsoft Store rather than a Burger King, or if in NHL, everyone has a Bing logo on their jersey. But would that be taking an unfair advantage of their position? Sure, devs could develop for other consoles just fine, but wouldn't they still loose billions of dollars and possibly face going out of business?

Apple already claimed to be the largest maker of mobile devices, you can't even say that they don't hold that much influence.

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