![]() Still, it remains to be seen if that can withstand adjudication by the courts because the EU courts aren’t very eager to condone targeting at this level and retroactively making things illegal. ![]() The EU has a different approach to this, mainly through carving legislation that aims to target specific companies. The fact that Apple became successful doesn’t change anything as long as that success isn’t gained by illegal means, like throwing my newly gained market dominance around. If I develop a new smartphone tomorrow with its own OS and adopt Apple’s approach to the walled garden, I’d be immediately in trouble. If you’d punish vertical integration or single-brand markets in general, then every start-up that automatically has a monopoly over its own products would be subject to punishment. This also makes sense from the perspective of market-wide ramifications. This makes sense in the US, they don’t want to punish success, and you are allowed to have an “innocent” monopoly. This means that Apple can be as restrictive and aggressive as it wants before it gains market dominance in the relevant market and maintains that stance as long as they don’t restrict after it gains market dominance. Vertical integrations as a result of organic expansion are not subject to legal scrutiny.įrom a US antitrust perspective, Apple is wholly in the clear as long as they don’t actively abuse their market power after they’ve gained their market dominance. Vertical integration by virtue of mergers can be subject to legal scrutiny. Horizontal integration as a result of mergers is immediately subject to legal scrutiny. Which is not illegal per se and, in most cases, such as Apple’s, not even subject to antitrust scrutiny. The root cause here seems to be fairly clear: (Excessive) vertical integration of platforms (or rather their owners) across domains.
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