DOJ’s lawsuit against Google for “monopolizing search and search advertising markets remains a major priority,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said Tuesday. The No. 3 Justice official spoke at a Georgetown Law antitrust symposium. She said DOJ’s complaint focuses on how Google’s “anti-competitive conduct has harmed competition, similar to how Microsoft did decades ago in favoring Internet Explorer and locking out Netscape.” She referenced how Google’s “anti-competitive conduct has affected a huge range of consumer choices.” DOJ will continue scrutinizing acquisitions involving “dominant firms and would-be rivals,” she said, noting the control that few digital platforms have over communications. She welcomed congressional interest in “providing new tools and resources for antitrust enforcement.” Powerful companies too often “exploit consumers and tilt the playing field in favor of the already powerful,” she said. Google didn't comment.

Amazon pacts with wholesalers harm consumers by increasing prices and hurting competition on online marketplaces, said District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine (D), adding that charge about first-party sellers to his May antitrust lawsuit at D.C. Superior Court (case 2021 CA 001775 B). The original complaint alleged Amazon practiced “anticompetitive restraint” at least until two years ago by barring its third-party sellers through a “price parity provision” in its contracts from offering their products at lower prices on a competing online retail sales platform (see 2105250050). Monday’s amended complaint alleges it's anti-competitive to require first-party sellers to guarantee Amazon a certain minimum profit. That minimum margin agreement means if Amazon lowers its price to match or beat another online marketplace a wholesaler must compensate Amazon for the difference between the minimum and actual profit, said the AG's office: To avoid those payments, wholesalers increase prices on other online marketplaces. “Amazon has continued to use its dominant position as an online marketplace to rig the system,” said Racine. An Amazon spokesperson emailed that what the AG seeks “would result in higher prices to customers, whether offered directly by Amazon or by third parties in our store, oddly going against core objectives of antitrust law." The court plans an initial scheduling conference Oct. 28 at 10:30 a.m.

A federal judge said Apple engaged in anti-competitive conduct without violating federal antitrust laws in Epic v. Apple (see 2010090015). Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Friday Apple can’t block developers from directing users away from Apple in-app purchases. “While this decision includes some relief for consumers, app developers, startups, and other innovators, it is clear that courts continue to narrowly interpret the antitrust laws in favor of monopolies and against consumers, workers, and small businesses,” wrote Reps. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., and David Cicilline, D-R.I. “This ruling reaffirms what we heard in our Senate hearing last spring: app stores raise serious competition concerns,” said Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. The ruling increases the likelihood of related legislation passing Congress, Cowen emailed investors. Apple may seek “a quick injunction against the enforcement” of Gonzalez Rogers’ “revisions to the App Store,” wrote analyst Paul Gallant. The company “has decent shot at near-term injunction,” if it seeks one, with a ruling on that in “perhaps 1-2 months,” he added. The judge "affirmed what we’ve known all along: the App Store is not in violation of antitrust law," an Apple spokesperson emailed. "As the Court recognized ‘success is not illegal.’ Apple faces rigorous competition in every segment in which we do business." The company didn't answer our question about plans for an injunction request.

U.S. interest remains high in using 5G networks for enterprise IoT applications, but deployment questions and uncertainties abound, reported the Information Services Group Thursday. Many companies rolling out IoT remain concerned about cybersecurity, “and they’re turning to service providers to help them protect the data flowing over IoT systems,” said ISG. There’s “rampant” hype about 5G, “and not all spectrum types are available in a particular country or on a particular mobile network,” said analyst Ron Exler. “Enterprises need to work with their network and IoT providers to manage the selection of replacement technologies in advance of shuttering events, preferably in conjunction with 5G deployment.”

A new Motorola AI-enabled in-car video system for law enforcement has an in-car camera that begins recording when an individual enters the back of a police car, said the company Wednesday. The technology is designed to ensure that the presence of a person in a police vehicle is securely recorded and that video evidence is automatically tagged and saved to an incident record, it said. The system is also equipped with advanced license plate recognition, which uses AI to raise critical alerts, such as identifying a vehicle that may be associated with a person.

Whole Foods Market will begin testing its Just Walk Out as a checkout option in stores in Washington’s Glover Park and in Sherman Oaks, California, next year, blogged Dilip Kumar, vice president-physical retail and technology. The Amazon company will evaluate how customers like being able to skip the checkout line in stores, he wrote Wednesday.

Rules protecting the principle of the open internet should be reviewed in light of new technologies, 5G, the move to the cloud and increased consumer and enterprise broadband demand, said the U.K. Office of Communications Tuesday. It wants input on how existing net neutrality rules on access, traffic management and specialized services are working, and whether updated guidance is needed. Comments are due Nov. 2, with initial findings expected next spring.

Apple is seeking the dismissal of a May 17 complaint asking class-action status that alleged the iPhone maker harms developers through anti-competitive behavior and monopolistic practices in running the App Store in violation of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, said a motion (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Plaintiff Primary Productions was “unhappy that a cryptocurrency app it had some role in developing was allegedly rejected from the App Store,” and alleges a series of “sweeping” antitrust and contract claims against Apple, said the motion. “But Apple has no obligation, under the antitrust laws or otherwise, to approve and distribute on its own platform apps that it has determined are inconsistent with Apple’s Guidelines.” It called the claims “meritless,” saying the plaintiff “has plausibly pleaded neither relevant antitrust markets nor cognizable antitrust injuries” to support its allegations. Apple asked for an Oct. 14 hearing before Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. Lawyers for the plaintiff didn’t respond Friday to requests for comment.

The Irish Data Protection Commission should strengthen its draft decision on WhatsApp privacy breaches, said the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) Thursday. It adopted a dispute resolution decision in July to address objections from several other data protection authorities to Ireland's proposed ruling on WhatsApp Ireland. The board decision recommended the DPC add another privacy infringement finding, and found that in this case, "in light of the gravity and the overarching nature and impact of the infringements, there has been an infringement of the transparency principle enshrined" in the general data protection regulation. When using WhatsApp's contact feature, data of non-users isn't anonymized. The EDPB urged the DPC to rethink how it calculated the social media site's fine, and asked that the time for WhatsApp to comply be cut from six to three months.

The cyberthreat environment “remains fierce,” as “inherent vulnerabilities” in widely used operating systems “leave companies of all sizes open to attack and provide a rich feeding ground for sophisticated and novice e-criminals alike,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on a call Tuesday for fiscal Q2 ended July 31. “The lessons learned from recent attacks emphasize that a breach involves more than just malware.” Companies “overly relying” on malware prevention have the biggest vulnerabilities, he said. More than half of recent threat detections “were not malware-based,” evidence that attackers are “exploiting the proliferation of vulnerabilities and abusing systemic weaknesses,” he said. The early July ransomware attack on Kaseya servers should serve as a “reminder to the far-reaching impact of a supply chain breach and the importance of a zero-trust architecture,” said Kurtz. “Most ransomware outbreaks have a compromised identity component. Shoring up this threat vector is critical to stopping breaches.” A new strategic alliance with Verizon positions the CrowdStrike Falcon cybersecurity platform as part of Verizon's business security portfolio “to provide comprehensive endpoint and workload protection that spans prevention, detection and response capabilities,” he said.