antitrust

Ticketmaster faces antitrust scrutiny after Taylor Swift ticket chaos • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 18, 2022Posted in antimonopoly, antitrust, Government & Policy, live-nation, policy, TicketMasterNo Comments

Ticketmaster is facing more scrutiny from politicians after its chaotic presales for tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti said he is looking into whether Ticketmaster violated consumer’s rights and antitrust regulations. Skrmetti is the latest politician who has called attention to Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s hold on the ticketing market. This comes as Ticketmaster cancelled its public sales for Swift’s tour, called Eras. In a tweet, Ticketmaster said the cancellation was due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” The public sale would have been for tickets left over from the site’s troubled presales, which started on Tuesday for members of its Verified Fan program. Many fans experienced technical glitches and hours-long wait times, with many ultimately unable to buy a ticket. According to the New York Times, Ticketmaster said in a now-deleted post that 3.5 million people registered for the Verified Fan program. Around 1.5 million were given a special access code, and the rest were put on a waiting list. “Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention—or uninvited volume,” Ticketmaster said. Skrmetti said he had received complaints from fans who tried to purchase tickets for Eras. In a tweet on Thursday, the attorney general said that other state attorney generals are also looking into the matter: “Ticketmaster’s decision to cancel sales underscores the important need for accountability. Fans deserve a fair chance to buy a ticket. I’m encouraged by other state AGs who are taking this issue serious as well.” The Washington Post reports that Skrmetti said Ticketmaster should have been better prepared for the high demand and questioned whether “because they have such a dominant market position, they felt like they didn’t need to worry about that.” In another tweet before the sale was cancelled, the attorney general’s office said Skrmetti “is concerned about consumer complaints related to @Ticketmaster’s pre-sale of @taylorswift13 concert tickets. He and his Consumer Protection team will use every available tool to ensure that no consumer protection laws were violated.” ZebethMedia has contacted Ticketmaster and the Skrmetti’s office for comment. Eras is Swift’s first tour in four years and comes after the release of her new album “Midnights.” Other politicians who have raised concerns over the combined company of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which merged in 2010, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative David N. Cicilline and Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. On Tuesday, Representative Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet on Tuesday that “Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they needed to be reigned in. Break them up.” Representative Cicilline tweeted on Wednesday that Ticketmaster’s “excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable, as seen with today’s @taylorswift13 tickets, and are a symptom of a larger problem. It’s no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly.” And Representative Pascrell, Jr., who was among the millions of fans put on a waitlist for Swift tickets, tweeted that Ticketmaster “The Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly should never have been allowed to merge and must be broken up.” Consumers are also pushing for a break up of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. An alliance of consumer rights groups, including antitrust nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, launched a campaign last month called Break Up Ticketmaster, saying that Ticketmaster’s “market power over live events is ripping off sports and music fans and undermining the vibrancy and independence of the music industry.”

The Epic Games-Apple antitrust battle resumes today in appeals court • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 14, 2022Posted in antitrust, Apple, Apps, Epic Games, law, lawsuitNo Comments

Apple’s antitrust battle against Fortnite maker Epic Games is returning to the courtroom after both sides appealed last year’s ruling in a precedent-setting case over Apple’s alleged anti-competitive behavior. Last year, a U.S. District Court judge had largely favored Apple when ruling the tech giant was not acting as a monopolist with regard to its App Store practices. Epic Games was unhappy with that decision, of course, as it had wanted the court to force Apple to support third-party payments which would have allowed Fortnite to maximize its revenues. Meanwhile, Apple didn’t want to agree to the court’s order that said it would hae to permit apps that provide links to alternative payments. Oral arguments will kick off this afternoon at the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit, in what will be an even higher-stakes trial for determining Apple’s future in the app market and its ability to set its own rules around payments and commissions. While the original case was already one of the more high-profile examples of Apple’s market power being challenged through the justice system, the appeals case will bring additional scrutiny as now, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of California have been granted time to present their own arguments to help explain the proper legal framework for evaluating the antitrust claims against Apple. Although the Justice Department’s arguments won’t technically support either side, it’s in the early stages of filing an antitrust suit against Apple — and the appeals court’s decision on the Epic Games case could ultimately shape its own ability to effectively prosecute Apple further down the road. The DoJ’s filing explained it had concerns over how the lower court had too narrowly interpreted parts of U.S. antitrust law — the Sherman Act — as well as other issues related to the lower court’s misunderstanding of the market and Apple’s monopoly power with regard to pricing, among other things. The appeals court docket is also filled with numerous amicus briefs disputing the original ruling. These include filings by noted Apple critics like Tile, Match, Basecamp, and the lobbying group the Coalition for App Fairness, as well as from other tech companies and game store operators, like Roblox and Microsoft, various consumer advocacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation Consumer Federation of America, and others. In addition, 35 U.S. state attorneys-general have filed in support of Epic Games. Epic Games had originally sued Apple in 2020 after Apple banned the company’s Fortnite app for its implementation of a new payment mechanism that allowed it to bypass Apple’s in-app purchase framework. This laid the groundwork for the antitrust case — a fight that had been brewing for years. Despite the judge’s declaration that Apple was not acting as a monopolist, the Cupertino-based tech giant appealed the ruling because it lost ground in a key area regarding what sort of rules it can make for its App Store. In the original decision, a federal judge ruled that Apple could no longer prohibit developers from pointing to other means of payment outside of Apple’s own payment system. Apple was later granted a stay on the injunction that would have forced it to comply by December 9, 2021 by updating its App Store policies, due to the case being under appeal. Epic Games had also appealed the original ruling, having wanted a decision that would have allowed the company an alternative means of serving its iOS user base, like a third-party app store, sideloading or third-party payment systems. In the months since, Apple has been crusading against the dangers of sideloading, with top execs like CEO Tim Cook and head of software engineering Craig Federighi highlighting the security compromises that sideloading entails. (This is not only due to the pressure from Epic Games, however, but also because the EU’s Digital Markets Act could mandate the method.) Epic’s lawyer Tom Goldstein will kick off today’s proceedings with his oral arguments in the appeals case presented before judges Sidney R. Thomas, Milan D. Smith Jr. and Michael J. McShane, beginning at 2 PM PT/5 PM ET. The hearing will be live-streamed on YouTube.

Google filing says EU’s antitrust division is investigating Play Store practices • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in antitrust, Digital Markets Act, Google, Government & Policy, play store, Privacy SandboxNo Comments

A Google regulatory filing appears to have confirmed rumors in recent months that the European Union’s competition division is looking into how it operates its smartphone app store, the Play Store. However ZebethMedia understands that no formal EU investigation into the Play Store has been opened at this stage. The SEC Form 10-Q, filed by Google’s parent Alphabet (and spotted earlier by Reuters), does make mention of “formal” investigations being opened into Google Play’s “business practices” back in May 2022 — by both the European Commission and the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Thing is, the Commission’s procedure on opening a formal competition investigation is to make a public announcement — so the lack of that standard piece of regulatory disclosure suggests any EU investigation is at a more preliminary stage than Google’s citation might imply. The U.K. antitrust regulator’s probe of Google Play is undoubtedly a formal investigation — having been publicly communicated by the CMA back in June — when it said it would probe Google’s rules governing apps’ access to listing on its Play Store, looking at conditions it sets for how users can make in-app payments for certain digital products. While, back in August, Politico reported that the Commission had sent questionnaires probing Play Store billing terms and developer fees — citing two people close to the matter. And potentially suggesting an investigation was underway. Although the EU’s executive declined to comment on its report. A Commission spokeswoman also declined to comment when we asked about the “formal investigation” mentioned in Google’s filing (at the time of writing Google had also not responded to requests about it). But we understand there is no “formal” EU probe into Play as yet — at least not how the EU itself understands the word. This may be because the EU’s competition division is still evaluating responses to enquiries made so far — and/or assessing whether there are grounds for concern. Alternatively, it might have decided it does not have concerns about how Google operates the Play Store. Although developer complaints about app store commissions levied by Google (and Apple) — via the 30% cut that’s typically applied to in-app purchases (a 15% lower rate can initially apply) — haven’t diminished. If anything, complaints have been getting louder — including as a result of moves by the tech giants to expand the types of sales that incur their tax. So lack of competition concern here seems unlikely. Last year, the Commission also charged Apple with an antitrust breach related to the mandatory use of its in-app purchase mechanism imposed on music streaming app developers (specifically) and restrictions on developers preventing them from informing users of alternative, cheaper payment options. So app store T&Cs are certainly on the EU’s radar. More than that: The EU has recently passed legislation that aims, among various proactive provisions, to regulate the fairness of app store conditions. So the existence of that incoming ex ante competition regime seems the most likely explanation for why there’s no formal EU investigation of Google Play today. Where Google is concerned, the Commission has already chalked up several major antitrust enforcements against its business over the last five+ years — with decisions against Google Shopping, Android and AdSense; as well as an ongoing investigation into Google’s adtech stack (plus another looking at an ad arrangement between Google and Facebook). Another consideration here is that EU lawmakers have had a very busy year hammering out consensus on a number of major pieces of digital regulation — including the aforementioned ex ante competition reform (aka, the Digital Markets Act; DMA) which will cast the Commission in a centralized enforcement role overseeing so-called Internet “gatekeepers.” That incoming regime is requiring the Commission to rapidly spin up new divisions to oversee DMA compliance and enforcement — so the EU may be feeling a little stretched on the resources front. But — more importantly — it may also be trying to keep its powder dry. Essentially, the Commission may want to see if the DMA itself can do the job of sorting out app developer gripes — since the regulation has a number of provisions geared toward app stores specifically, including a prohibition on gatekeepers imposing “general conditions, including pricing conditions, that would be unfair or lead to unjustified differentiation [on business users],” for example. The regulation is due to start applying from Spring 2023 so a fresh competition investigation into Google’s app store at this stage could risk duplicating or complicating the enforcement of conditions already baked into EU law. (Although the process of designating gatekeepers and core platform services will need to come before any enforcement — so the real DMA action may not happen before 2024). For its part, Google denies any antitrust wrongdoing anywhere in the world its business practices are being investigated. In the section of its filing rounding up antitrust investigations targeting its business, it writes: “We believe these complaints are without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.” Its filing also reveals that it intends to seek to appeal to the EU’s highest court after its attempt to overturn the EU’s Android decision was rejected last month. (The CJEU will only hear appeals on a matter of law so it remains to be seen what Google will try to argue.) Privacy Sandbox Also today, the U.K.’s CMA has released its second report on ongoing monitoring of commitments made by Google as it develops a new adtech stack to replace tracking cookies (aka Privacy Sandbox). The regulator said it had found Google to be complying with commitments given so far — and listed its current priorities as: Ensuring Google designs a robust testing framework for its proposed new tools and APIs; continuing to engage with market participants to understand concerns raised by them, challenging Google over its proposed approaches and exploring alternative designs for the Privacy Sandbox tools which might address these issues; and embedding a recently appointed independent technical expert (a company called S-RM) into the