The Justice Department has come to the conclusion that Apple must allow its customers access to Barnes & Noble and Amazon e-book stores. They have set out proposals of how this will happen, in order to fix the whole price fixing scandal.
A federal judge will be the one to force Apple to offer its competitors’ ebook stores on its devices. Apple is already under investigation for price fixing deals with publishers in order to get better deals for e-books and dig into the share of rivals like B&N and Amazon. Seeing how the Kindle app is present on so many Android devices, it’s clear that Apple wouldn’t like to see that happening with the iPad, for example.
Back in July US District Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple has orchestrated a conspiracy with 5 publishers to increase prices of digital books and take control of the ebook market from Amazon. By offering rival book services on its devices, at least Apple could provide customers with alternatives to buying books straight from Cupertino’s flagship firm.
