FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller Files Antitrust Complaint Against Apple and Google
FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller has filed an antitrust complaint against both Apple and Google in numerous countries. The complaint follows the rejection of a game Mueller created that was aimed at encouraging compliance with government COVID-19 rules.
The complaint was filed with the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and antitrust watchdogs in Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, and Australia. Additionally, Mueller plans to file another complaint in India next week.
Apple and Google are accused of holding back innovation in breach of EU regulations after both companies rejected the Corona Control Game app in back in November. The two companies have refused to allow any COVID-19 apps on their app stores unless they are government approved.
Mueller’s complaint says, “The stated goal of ‘ensuring the credibility of health and safety information’ does not justify blanket rules based on authorship or merely the combination of a broad category and a topic”.
Eventually Mueller was forced to modify his app and rename it “Viral Days”.
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For me it was quite a difficult decision to do this. I’d rather just have continued to watch cases like Epic Games v. Apple, but after much thought I concluded that the issue I have with Apple and Google in this context is part of a broader problem. When I made this decision, I had no idea that a U.S. antitrust lawsuit over Apple’s COVID app rules–Coronavirus Reporter v. Apple–was being prepared. I learned about it only a couple of days ago, and commented on it today. But I figured that there’d be other legitimate COVID-related apps that must have been rejected only because they were not submitted by governmental entities or healthcare providers.
What my company had to do to our Corona Control Game in order to comply with Apple’s and Google’s rules is best explained with an analogy:
Imagine what it would have meant if the makers of the Titanic film had had to deal with only two movie theater operators, each of which controlled a distinct part of the world. Each of these cinema operators would have stated its rules slightly differently, but the net effect would have been the same: do the Titanic film without the Titanic ship, or else.
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Apple is facing numerous antitrust investigations and lawsuits including one from Epic Games and Cydia. You can download the iClarified app or follow iClarified on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and RSS for updates.
