Apple sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for antitrust violations

The U.S. Justice Department has officially filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple.

According to The New York Times, the lawsuit was filed on Thursday morning, by the Department of Justice and 16 states and district attorneys in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuit accuses the tech giant of violating antitrust laws by blocking or restricting competitors in favor of its own software and hardware related to the iPhone.

The suit is a culmination of a 2019 antitrust investigation against Big Tech companies. The Department of Justice has already sued Google for anticompetitive practices, and the Federal Trade Commission has ongoing lawsuits with Meta and Amazon

"Each step in Apple’s course of conduct built and reinforced the moat around its smartphone monopoly," the lawsuit. Specific practices mentioned include allegedly creating better compatibility between the iPhone and the Apple Watch over other smartwatches, favoring its own apps over third-party competitors like Spotify, blocking cloud-gaming apps from the App Store, blocking competitors from iMessage compatibility, and restricting devices like Tile that compete with AirTag.

In Europe, Apple has recently faced similar anticompetitive violations. In February, European Commission fined the company $2 billion dollars for blocking Spotify and other music apps from accessing cheaper music subscriptions through the App Store. The EU's Digital Markets Act, which went into effect in March, enforces strict regulations aimed at breaking up Big Tech dominance, and will likely impact Apple's practices in Europe as well.