The U.S. Department of Justice said iMessage was suspected of being anti-competitive, and the reasons included creating 'social shame'

IT Home News on March 25, the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple contains a rather strange allegation. The allegation targets Apple’s text messaging application iMessage because it is only available for iPhones. anti-competitive. However, the reason for the lawsuit is not just that, it also claims that green chat bubbles (the color of message bubbles for Android users) will create "social stigma" for users.

In response, a lawyer commented that the Department of Justice is actually complaining that people think iPhones are cooler than Android phones.

IT House has noticed that the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple can be described as “all-encompassing.” This approach is also known as “casting a net prosecution,” that is, listing as many items as possible For all problems, I hope to find a breakthrough point. The Justice Department included all existing antitrust charges against Apple, as well as some that had never been brought before, as a formal complaint against Apple.

1. Apple once considered bringing iMessage to the Android platform, but ultimately abandoned this plan in order to increase users' dependence on the iPhone.

2. Wired notes that the lawsuit isn’t just about business policy, but also addresses what Android users will experience when using green bubbles in group chats instead of blue (the color of bubbles for iPhone users) “Social stigma” and feelings of “ostracism.” Green bubbles can also "break" chats, forcing the conversation to switch to SMS mode. The lawsuit also points out that this phenomenon is particularly evident among teenagers, who "fear being isolated" because of their use of Android phones.
3. While this phenomenon may be real, classifying it as an antitrust issue seems far-fetched. One lawyer bluntly said that the Justice Department is actually complaining that people think iPhones are cool and Android phones are not cool enough.
4. Paul Swanson, a law firm partner from Denver, Colorado, said: "What exactly did Apple prevent? A company successfully created a network effect and made the product cool. That could almost be seen as an advantage, but I've never seen a case where that was included in an antitrust lawsuit. It would be an interesting case in antitrust law." It also argued that the lawsuit was an attempt to turn the iPhone into Android.
5. It is worth mentioning that although the exclusivity issue of iMessage has attracted a lot of attention in the United States, it has not attracted the attention of antitrust regulators in Europe, because most iPhone users in Europe prefer Use WhatsApp for chatting.

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