Smart tag maker Tile will today testify against Apple in the latest hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee.
Apple is working on its own Tile-like tracking device, likely to be called AirTag, and Tile isn’t happy about it…
Congress is considering the question of whether tech giants have so much power that they are able to abuse their dominant position in the marketplace to unfairly compete with smaller companies.
Apple has already stopped selling Tile products in Apple Stores after doing so since 2015 and has also poached one of the company’s engineers. The company told Reuters that it had raised its concerns directly with Apple but not gotten anywhere.
“After thoughtful consideration and months of bringing our concerns to Apple through regular … channels, Tile has made the decision to continue raising concerns over Apple’s anti-competitive practices,” Tile general counsel Kirsten Daru told Reuters in an interview.
The startup will be one of four companies testifying at the latest hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee in Colorado on Friday, urging Congress to look at how these companies use their considerable clout in the online market to hurt rivals.
It’s not known whether any of the others will testify against Apple. Congress has sought feedback about potential anticompetitive behavior by four companies.
In September, House lawmakers asked more than 80 companies for information about how their businesses may have been harmed by any anti-competitive behavior from Amazon.com Inc, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google. In October, Committee Chairman David Cicilline said he expects to have a final report on its probe by the “first part” of 2019.
Apple is facing antitrust investigations on a number of fronts. In addition to the Congressional hearings, the Department of Justice has its own investigation; the Federal Trade Commission is investigating the legality of a deal between Apple and Amazon; a number of US states are carrying out wide-ranging antitrust inquiries of their own; there are a number of cases in other countries; and a slew of lawsuits.
As for the competition with Tile, you can check out everything we know about AirTag here.
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