The sudden firing of two high-ranking antitrust officials this week is signaling upheaval at an agency responsible for arguing some of the biggest tech monopoly cases in decades. Two top deputies to Department of Justice Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater were fired earlier this week for what a DOJ official would only explain as "insubordination" in an unattributed statement. Antitrust trade publication MLex reported that termination letters for Roger Alford and Bill Rinner, who also served in the first Trump administration, did not mention the reason for their firing. (Alford later posted a copy of his letter, which he said he framed and … Read the full story at The Verge.

The Dutch antitrust regulator ACM announced Friday that it has delayed its ruling on Apple’s fees for dating app providers, awaiting the outcome of ongoing talks between Apple and the European Commission on a related issue. Reuters: ‎ It added that Apple recently adjusted its rates in light of these discussions and the U.S. firm has announced that it will make further adjustments later this year. In June, a Dutch court confirmed the watchdog’s ruling saying that Apple had abused its dominant position by imposing unfair conditions on providers of dating apps in the App Store. ‎ MacDailyNews Take: We await the “ACM takes a bite out of Dutch Apple” headlines with bated breath. ‎ Please help support MacDailyNews —…

The US Department of Justice notched an initial win in its antitrust case against Apple today, with a federal judge rejecting Apple’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit outright. The government’s allegations are “sufficient to demonstrate Apple’s specific intent to monopolize the smartphone and performance smartphone market,“ Judge Julien Neals wrote in an opinion on Monday. Apple filed to dismiss the government’s lawsuit in August 2024, arguing that the Justice Department failed to show that Apple monopolized the smartphone market or acted in an anticompetitive manner. The lawsuit was based on the “outlandish” premise that Apple’s success comes from “intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats,” the company wrote. The case’s progress is still early, and the judge isn’t…

Apple is in urgent talks with EU regulators to modify its App Store and dodge escalating fines set to begin this week. The $3 trillion company, previously fined €500 million for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act, is negotiating with the European Commission to comply with the law. Barbara Moens for Financial Times: ‎ People involved in the negotiations said Apple was expected to offer concessions on its “steering” provisions that stop users accessing offers outside the App Store. Regulators ordered the Silicon Valley company to revise its rules within two months of its initial €500mn fine, with the deadline for the company to comply with the bloc’s rules in order to avoid new levies expiring on Thursday. Those financial…

We’re doing something a little different on today’s episode of Decoder. I asked my friend John Gruber, of the website Daring Fireball, to come on the show and talk about the future of Apple — and, importantly, the App Store. Gruber and I have been friends for over a decade now. Daring Fireball was one of the first and most influential Apple blogs around, and he has more insight into Apple, its culture, and how it does things than anyone else. Everyone at Apple and in the Apple developer community reads Daring Fireball religiously. In 2010, Steve Jobs himself emailed Gruber’s analysis of an early App Store rule change to an unhappy developer and called it “very insightful.” Personally, I…

Microsoft's Bing or DuckDuckGo probably won't disrupt Google's dominance in search, said Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue - but AI services easily could. Cue was returning to a courtroom in Washington, DC where he last testified in the Justice Department's trial against Google's search monopoly in September 2023. During the current remedies trial on Wednesday, Cue said that in the time since, well-funded generative AI upstarts have made such significant advancements that they could ultimately disrupt that monopoly - perhaps more effectively than the court could. Cue was also, however, there to defend a significant source of Apple's revenue: the payments Google offers for default search engine placement on Apple's Safari browser. After the 2023 trial, Judge…