US senators question Apple and Google on app store dominance: Details here
By Diane Bartz, Stephen Nellis and Paresh Dave
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A panel of U.S. senators questioned
officials from Apple Inc and
Alphabet Inc's Google on Wednesday
about the dominance of their mobile app stores and whether the companies abuse
their power at the expense of smaller competitors.
Amy Klobuchar, the top Senate Democrat on antitrust issues, said
Apple and Google can
use their power to "exclude or suppress apps that compete with their own
products" and "charge excessive fees that affect competition."
App makers like music streaming service Spotify Technology SA and
dating services giant Match Group, which owns the Tinder app, have long
complained that mandatory revenue sharing for sales of digital goods and strict
inclusion rules set by Apple's App Store for iPhones and iPads, along with
Google's Play store for Android devices, amount to anticompetitive behavior.
Representatives for Apple and Google told senators
the companies' tight control over their stores and the associated
revenue-sharing requirements are needed to enforce and pay for security
measures to protect consumers from harmful apps and practices.
But when asked by Senator Josh Hawley, Apple's Chief Compliance
Officer Kyle Andeer would not commit to spending all of the mandatory fees on
security.
Explanations from Andeer and Google's Wilson White, senior
director for government affairs, about why the companies' fees do not apply to
Uber Technologies Inc and apps that sell physical goods also failed to satisfy
senators.
"I feel like unfrozen caveman lawyer," Senator Mike Lee
said. "I'm not grasping it."
Senator Richard Blumenthal expressed concern about a call Match
said it received late on Tuesday from its business counterpart at Google.
Match's Chief Legal Officer Jared Sine said Google wanted to know
why Sine's planned testimony, which had just been released, deviated from
previous comments the dating company had made.
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