WaPo reports that Apple’s famed App Store is going to show up in the foyer of SCOTUS:
The Supreme Court on Monday announced that it would consider a case that asks whether consumers can sue Apple over the way it manages millions of apps for iPhones and iPads, threatening to expose not only Apple but also its tech industry peers to new antitrust scrutiny.
The new fight in front of the nine justices stems from a lawsuit initiated in California almost seven years ago. Robert Pepper and three other iPhone-owning plaintiffs allege that Apple has “monopolized” the market for iPhone apps because it has total control over the games, utilities and other offerings that appear in its App Store.
Sure, this is just non-specialized reporting, but I thought this was interesting:
The lawsuit could force Apple to rethink the way it manages its App Store, long considered one of the most highly curated platforms in the business. For one thing, Apple generally takes a 30 percent cut of all third-party apps sold through its portal. In the eyes of the plaintiffs, that fee ultimately hurts consumers, because developers pass those added costs on to iPhone and iPad users who purchase the paid apps.
Consumers “don’t like the fact that they’re being forced to buy apps only on the App Store and they’re forced to pay a 30 percent markup,” said Mark Rifkin, a senior partner at Wolf Haldenstein who represents the plaintiffs.
Which makes it sound like just a pre-emptory fee, doesn’t it? Yet my understanding, not being an Apple customer, is that Apple “curates” (to use a word from elsewhere in the same article) the App Store. The phraseology doesn’t acknowledge that Apple is apparently offering a valuable service via this curation, presumably minimizing the impact of malware.
It’ll be interesting to see how this comes out.
