DOJ to Apple: You're wrong, wrong, wrong on e-books

DOJ to Apple: You're wrong, wrong, wrong on e-books

•  The DOJ dismisses most of the 868 public comments on its proposed final judgement (798 of which opposed it) as self-serving, then singles out for quotation individual letters cherry picked from among the 70 that were supportive.
• It sidesteps the central criticism -- that the government sided with monopoly (Amazon), rather than competition, in bringing an antitrust case against Apple and five publishers last April. It simply states as a fact that it looked into complaints of Amazon's widely-feared "predatory practices" and found "persuasive evidence" lacking.
• It uses highly charged language -- "seismic shift," "hobbling retailers," "unfettered competition"  -- yet insists that Apple's arguments be "stripped of [their] rhetoric" before it declares the company wrong, wrong, wrong on every point -- as near as I can tell -- of antitrust law.
• It points to Google's and Microsoft's new tablets as evidence that the e-book market has thrived since the antitrust suit was filed, as if either company were getting into the market a) in response to the suit or b) primarily to sell e-books.