by Mark Duell at Daily Mail
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has been urged to investigate concerns contained in US lawsuit papers that Google and Apple are actively collaborating to drive search revenue growth.
In a complaint about changes to the use of data in Apple’s app store, online campaign group Marketers For An Open Web (MOW) has cited documents from a US Department of Justice lawsuit last October which was backed by 11 states.
These quoted an internal email saying senior Google and Apple staff discussed a ‘vision that we work as if we are one company’ when looking at search income.
The US lawsuit followed huge pressure from regulators, smaller search engines such as DuckDuckGo and app developers concerned about high fees and complex rules.
And MOW has now quoted from what it claims to be evidence in the US of ‘collusion at a very senior level between Apple and Google in relation to overall strategy’.
The group, which is backed by advertising and news publishing companies, has cited US regulatory filings on agreements between the firms, and now wants the CMA to request internal documents from the companies on meetings.
MOW said in its complaint that the California-based tech giants are both creating ‘walled gardens of apps stores’ and stifling innovation on the open web…
Continue Reading