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Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

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Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#251

Post by oblomovshchina »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #247
SpikeDad wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what's terrible about being a lifetime appointment. Once a politicial driven justice gets appointed there's literally nothing that will change them. Perhaps in the "old" days when Justices had the feelings you're attributing it might be true but now in the current political situation ideologues are who are sought out to appoint and they care only they're well regarded by their own political persuasion.

A sub-lifetime appointment is also really bad for the Court system, too- the Court gets the final say in the law- and needs independence- and if we were to hold elections every few years for the Supreme Court , we would have an even more partisan government , as people would go campaigning for that office, with all its mud-slinging and hyper-partisanship that seems to be necessary to get elected in the United States'…

Having an elected judiciary is in itself a terrible idea, and not the only option against lifetime appointment. There's also term limits for appointments.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#252

Post by shmerl »

Can anyone now blast Apple on anti-trust grounds, for banning competing browsers in their store?

When Apple want to sabotage universal adoption of certain technology (such as DASH for video streaming), they can avoid implementing needed components on the client side in their engine, forcing everyone who wants to target iOS (a sizable chunk of the Web market) to support their own technology instead of only something else.

So control over the browser engines in the store gives them anti-competitive control which extends way beyond it. It's surprising no one challenged that garbage until now.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#253

Post by Fellshard »

robbrown451 wrote: post #244
Fellshard wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly don't like it, no, but that doesn't make it antitrust in this case. My feelings and desires aren't what determines law, and thank goodness for that.

In a democracy, they kind of are. Indirectly, obviously. My feelings and desires affect how I vote, and voting affects legislation as well as such things as who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. (and given our legal system, courts determine law as much as legislators do) I think it is awful that manufacturers of devices have that level of control of who can sell apps to run on them, and I certainly hope enough oth…

Consumers have a choice, though, and that trumps most other considerations. With Android, they receive an alternative set of constraints. Do I think Apple is wise to be as restrictive as they are? No. Is it within their bounds to do so? Absolutely.

As a consumer, I can be disgruntled that my chosen platform is not as flexible as I wish. I can either throw a fit and lobby congress to force Apple to open its gates, or wait a year or two for my phone to slow down and pick up an Android device. In fact, this kind of migration occurs in both directions on a regular basis. Only religious loyalists stick with a single ecosystem without examining the tradeoffs they're making, as a general rule.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#254

Post by sjy »

theshrike79 wrote: post #147

So I could now sue Microsoft because I can only buy XBox games from their store? Or Sony, because they are the only vendor of Playstation games?

Would it be a bad thing for society if the antitrust laws were interpreted in this way? Why should these hardware vendors be allowed to exercise control over the software their customers run? Personally I think that open platforms are socially important, and I'm concerned that voting with my wallet isn't enough to protect and nurture them. Most people don't have the time, knowledge or interest to think about open vs closed platforms when they make purchasing decisions, and I think law is an appropriate solution to this market failure.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#255

Post by dragonwriter »

ashelmire wrote: post #192
ttul wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ten year term ought to do the trick, though. And would allow the passage of time to undo any stacking of the court that a particular president wants to engage in.

6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impact on it, and we aren't stuck with judges with outdated ideologies forever (unless people vote for it).

> 6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court

Most presidents are reelected to two terms, and so if judicial terms were offset from Presidential terms by a year, they'd have:

At 0 years, 0 justices they appointed.

At 1 year, 3 justices.

At 3 years, 6 justices.

At 5-8 years (and up until 1 year into the next term), all 9 justices.

So most President get to completely stack the court, the effects just don't last as long—the judiciary becomes another weathervane political branch of government, because the two of those was too few.

(And I don't even want to consider the consequences of all those short time justices looking to their post-Court career while sitting on the bench.)

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#256

Post by dragonwriter »

cataphract wrote: post #236
ashelmire wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 year staggered appointments. So 3 justices terms are up every 2 years. Means one president doesn't get to completely stack the court, but each has a fair impact on it, and we aren't stuck with judges with outdated ideologies forever (unless people vote for it).

The proposal more often floated around is an 18-year term limit (see https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=701121 ), which would give each president 2 appointments. The big difficult, however, is how to make sure that a hostile senate wouldn't just block all nominations (which is the new norm). Some people like Calabresi have suggested that the president and everyone in the senate would be denied all co…

The simple way to stop the Senate from just blocking everything (which it does by not scheduling a vote, to avoid accountability of individual senators to voting down qualified candidates) is to reshape their confirmation power to a power to actively reject.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#257

Post by Yetanfou »

pankajdoharey wrote: post #231
Kye wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can go somewhere else to buy potatoes if I don't like how one store handles them. An iPhone owner can't go off to the Microsoft, Google, or Amazon stores if they don't like the version in the Apple store. They have a monopoly on apps for iOS devices.

Well with that logic, i you own a Ford Truck and you dont like their service can you go to Honda service center? the app store.

If that 'Honda service centre' happens to be an independent repair shop with loads of logo's on the front window, sure.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#258

Post by pier25 »

Fellshard wrote: post #177
pier25 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> believes they are buying a general computing device that they can use for any purpose and customize freely, which is simply not the case So you are arguing that an iPhone is a very sophisticated calculator and not a general purpose computer?

I am arguing it is constrained by its manufacturer and that consumers are well aware of those constraints on purchase. That is sufficient for the consumer to take on liability if the choice does not meet their needs.

Consumers were well aware of Internet Explorer not being removable from Windows too. So?

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#259

Post by Fellshard »

pier25 wrote: post #258
Fellshard wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am arguing it is constrained by its manufacturer and that consumers are well aware of those constraints on purchase. That is sufficient for the consumer to take on liability if the choice does not meet their needs.

Consumers were well aware of Internet Explorer not being removable from Windows too. So?

This is incoherent, non sequitur. Again, we're talking about two different categories of devices: general computing vs. non-general. At the moment, smartphones are non-general, insofar as they are not made for user programmability from the device itself.

Secondly, that MS case is a different matter than the one cited here, and does not map well onto this case.

Thirdly, the major precedent of the original ruling appears to have been overturned shortly after. This damages the argument somewhat. The ruling seems scurrilous in the first place, in my opinion.

Re: Supreme Court rules antitrust lawsuit against Apple can proceed

#260

Post by moron4hire »

Spivak wrote: post #172
michaelmrose wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument discussed was literally Apple trying to argue that you aren't their customer for the purpose of legal liability while you pay them money to install apps from their store on a device they configured to only be able to buy from their store. This decision makes clear that legal weasels lost. Understanding next steps requires constructing the argument correctly. One could ask why should Apple be forced to op…

Look I want to have full control of my devices but I don't think owning the physical hardware entitles you to any rights other than you may do with the device as-is as you please. If we decide that designing a toaster to only accept $vendor's bread is illegal that's all well and good but the justification for such a law will be that it's monopolistic behavior, not that the end user owns the toaster.

It's really hard to prove that a person who paid money for an object in their hand, without an explicit leasing agreement, is not the "owner" of that object.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of...

Without a compelling, court-tested, legal precedent for Apple to claim "you don't own that iPhone in your hand", the assumption is that you do, regardless of what the EULA might say. EULAs that are contrary to standing law are not valid.

The fact that one can buy iPhones on the secondary market lends credence to notion that consumers own their devices.

And given that Atari and Nintendo both tried, and failed, to make similar arguments against 3rd party software manufacturers, I think it's pretty clear which way the courts would go, if it were to ever be tested.

We don't live in a society where corporations get to make up whatever rules they want, as long as they can convince someone to sign on the dotted line.

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