On Thursday, the Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general sued Apple for violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its iPhone.

The following statement can be attributed to George Rakis, Executive Director for NextGen Competition (nextgencomp.tech):

Apple has marketed its tight grip on the iPhone ecosystem for far too long as a consumer benefit. The company has long sought to minimize its anti-competitive behavior and anti-consumer policies with terms like ‘walled garden.’ But make no mistake: this $2.75 trillion Big Tech behemoth is a modern-day monopoly that has used its market power to crush competition and force app developers to accept restrictive and harmful terms to reach its millions of customers. Even when mandated by regulators, Apple has been slow to soften its grip on the iOS App Store. Its ‘compliance’ with the European Union Digital Markets Act has been, thus far, characterized by bad-faith behavior.

We applaud the Department of Justice for taking on the world's second-largest company. This is the first step towards holding Apple accountable, and hopefully, it is just the beginning.

About NextGen Competition

Our mission is to support a robust and competitive technology ecosystem by opposing anti-competitive business practices and promoting greater industry accountability. Specifically, we oppose consolidation in the industry that undermines worker protections and employer accountability, threatens data privacy and security, encourages market concentration, and limits consumer choice. NextGen Competition intends to work with a broad coalition of unions and public interest partners as it seeks to oppose anti-competitive business practices.