Apple was recently found guilty in its long standing e-book scandal case, and now, the U.S. Department of Justice is trying to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. The DOJ has suggested a number of measures to the court that would prevent Apple from deterring competition again in the future.
The DOJ suggests that Apple should be forced to let other e-book sellers place links within their apps, something that Apple hasn’t allowed for a couple years now. This would allow for sellers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble to link directly to their e-book stores from within their apps, so customers are given more choice when it comes to where they can buy their book. Another suggestion is to force Apple to end its current five year agreement with publishers and to prevent the company from creating any new agreements with them for the next five years. This would prevent Apple from being able to force certain prices and pricing models like it had previously done.
It’s still unknown as to whether the court will implement some or all of these suggestions, and Apple is still in the process of appealing the original decision. It seems like there’s a good chance Apple may end up taking a significant blow from all this.
