Tech Oversight Project, 15 Groups Urge DOJ to Bring Antitrust Case vs. Apple

Sixteen consumer advocacy organizations urged the DOJ to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple “with haste” in support of the agency’s “antitrust enforcement against Big Tech companies,” said their letter Thursday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter.

The letter cited Apple’s purported blocking of cross-platform messaging service Beeper Mini. Signers include The Tech Oversight Project, American Economic Liberties Project, Demand Progress, Democracy for America Advocacy Fund, Fight for the Future, Main Street Alliance, NextGen Competition, Other 98%, Our Revolution, Progress America and Revolving Door Project.

The letter called out Apple’s efforts to protect its “walled garden,” saying Apple is “is once again in the news for abusing its power to stifle competition” by blocking Beeper Mini’s technology that’s designed “to bridge the 'blue bubble/green bubble’ messaging gap for non-iPhone users.”

At issue is the ability of iPhone users to communicate securely with non-iPhone users, the letter said. Apple currently allows two iPhone users to communicate with each other using secure “blue bubble” iMessages, while one iPhone user communicating with an Android user “is relegated to non-secure ‘green bubble’ SMS text messages, it said. It noted a Dec. 10 post on X from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., saying green bubble texts “are less secure,” so “why would Apple block a new app allowing Android users to chat with iPhone users on iMessage?” Big Tech company executives “are protecting profits by squashing competitors,” Warren said. Communicating between phone operating system platforms “should be easy and secure."

Apple may view blue bubble exclusivity as a marketing asset, the letter said, citing a January 2022 Wall Street Journal article saying teenagers in particular “dread the green text bubble” and feel “peer pressure” to be part of the “blue text group.”

IMessage exclusivity was discussed “at the highest levels of the company,” the letter said, noting that was revealed in documents in the legal battle between Apple and Epic games. Apple’s marketing head at the time wrote to CEO Tim Cook that "moving iMessage to Android will hurt us more than help us,” it said.

The groups compared the encrypted messaging issue to Apple’s treatment of company Tile, which had a tracking device on the market prior to Apple’s AirTags. Apple “has been accused of making Tile’s devices more difficult to operate in order to gain marketplace advantage for AirTags,” the letter said.

Apple has a “long, ongoing history of anticompetitive behavior, including favoring its own products on its devices, unfair policies for third party apps and control of the App Store marketplace, and using its dominance to crush smaller competitors,” the letter said. The recent DOJ v. Google trial brought to light the “multibillion dollar deal between Apple and Google to act as ‘one company’ when it comes to search," it said.

The iPhone maker’s “monopolistic conduct” has also been scrutinized in the automotive and payments sectors, the letter said. Apple has prevented rival digital wallets from using its near-field communications technology “in order to prop up Apple Pay,” it said.

Apple’s “anticompetitive practices have harmed consumers, put user privacy and security at risk, stifled innovation, unfairly crushed competitors, and undermined the economy,” the groups said. Apple didn’t comment.