Apple facing escalating competition probes

Dylan Bushell-Embling & Robert Clark
14 Jun 2010
00:00

Apple’s run of success is reflected in its towering stock price and, now, a growing number of anti-trust probes.

Apple has just overtaken Microsoft as the world’s biggest technology company by market cap, but it now faces a series of launch investigations into its role in the software and music industries.

The US Federal Trade Commission plans to probe Apple's decision to restrict mobile advertising on its platforms to a limited subset of providers, sources told FT.com.

It also is likely to scrutinize Apple’s refusal to allow Flash software from Adobe to run on the iPhone or iPad, WSJ reported.

Under Apple’s new advertising guidelines, only “independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads” can serve ads for the iPhone.

The move, widely seen as a swipe at rival Google's AdMob business, could be anticompetitive considering that Apple recently introduced its own interactive advertising service, iAd, which is due to launch on July 1.

Apple had pre-sold $60 million worth of ads as of last week.

Separately, the US Justice Department has held discussions with music companies over claims that Apple had used its market dominance to persuade music labels not to take part in a deal with Amazon.com.

The Justice Department is already examining an agreement between Apple and other tech companies now to poach each other's employees, WSJ reported.

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