Apple and Google Get Investigated for Anti-Competition

The Regulatory bodies in the United States of America are concerned about the increasing intimate relationship between the two heavyweights Apple and Google. The relationship is even so close that the two companies share board members. This is obviously worrying when both companies have such a large market share in similar industries.

The main concern that the Regulators in the U.S. think that the two internet giants could potentially violate competition laws as both companies have vast investments in the mobile phone market. The products that both companies have in the mobile communications industry are iPhone and Android and the browser market in the form of Safari and Chrome. Both companies also have the video services iTunes and YouTube, the photo services iPhoto and Picassa and competition to Microsoft Office in the form of iWork and Google Docs.

Where the relationship of these two companies gets closer is the fact that Google is producing applications for Apples iPhone including Google Maps and Gmail and Latitude is surely on the way. Therefore, the two could in theory start to dominate the mobile phone market to a significant degree. That is where markets become dominated by one particular company and competition is restricted by the dominant parties. Not good for consumers.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

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