Apple Faces Potential Antitrust Lawsuit... US Department of Justice May File Charges

The U.S. government is reportedly likely to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple as early as the first half of this year.

On the 5th (local time), The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing sources, that the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into Apple's unfair practices has entered its final stage.

Senior officials from the Department of Justice's antitrust division have begun reviewing the cases of Apple's unfair practices collected so far and are said to be exchanging opinions through face-to-face contact with Apple representatives.

The Department of Justice is reportedly verifying claims that "Apple is engaging in various unfair practices to exclude competitors in the smartphone and software markets."

Specifically, it concerns the difficulty of using smartwatches from other brands linked to the iPhone besides the Apple Watch, and the fact that the messaging service iMessage excludes users of phones other than the iPhone.

Additionally, the Department of Justice is said to be focusing on the fact that iPhone users cannot use payment services provided by other companies besides Apple Pay.

In the market, there are also claims that Apple's prohibition of external companies' use of the voice assistant service Siri constitutes unfair practices.

If the Department of Justice determines that the cases collected so far constitute illegal acts to exclude competition, a lawsuit is expected to be filed as early as the first half of this year.

However, the NYT emphasized that the Department of Justice has not yet reached a conclusion regarding Apple's violation of antitrust laws.

Apple is reportedly taking the position that applying antitrust laws to the iPhone itself is impossible because the iPhone's market share in the smartphone market does not reach that of Android products such as Samsung and Google.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.