Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal seems to be making a career out of going after technology sites and tools. As Digital Daily points out that he has thus far gone after Craigslist, Google and Topix, and now it appears he has set his sights on Apple and Amazon.
The concern is that publishers such as Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, HarperCollins and Penguin have agreed to “most favored nation” (MFN) clauses in their contracts with Apple and Amazon. This means that any special pricing offered to companies such as Barnes & Noble and Borders must also be offered to the companies with that status.
Mr. Blumenthal explains his reasoning as:
“These agreements among publishers, Amazon and Apple appear to have already resulted in uniform prices for many of the most popular e-books — potentially depriving consumers of competitive prices,” Blumenthal said. “The e-book market is set to explode — with analysts predicting that e-book readers will be among the holiday season’s biggest electronic gifts — warranting prompt review of the potential anti-consumer impacts.
“Amazon and Apple combined will likely command the greatest share of the retail e-book market, allowing their most-favored-nation clauses to effectively set the floor prices for the most popular e-books. Such agreements — especially when offered to two of the largest e-book retail competitors in the United States — threaten to encourage coordinated pricing and discourage discounting.”
He has sent letters to both Apple (PDF link) and Amazon (PDF link) over the issue, and what I find disturbing is that he admits that MFNs are not legal or illegal, but instead of exist in a somewhat gray area of the law. He also states that he is pursuing this because he read an article about it back in March, and has been following it with interest ever since, so this isn’t due to anyone complaining about it, he just happens to want to get into it.
Mr. Blumenthal is of course within his legal rights as an Attorney General to investigate things such as this, but the timing coinciding with his running for a Senate seat just seems a bit of opportunism. Add in his interest in other technology situations and it all just seems a bit odd.
What say you? Should Connecticut’s Attorney General be looking into this?
The Galaxy S20 Ultra's Space Zoom camera is amazing and a bit creepy
The Galaxy S20 Ultra supports up to 100X zoom, which Samsung calls Space Zoom, but is it any good? Can a phone really product usable photos at 100x zoom? We've got our Galaxy S20 Ultra already so join us to find out!
Win an iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with the Reader's Choice giveaway!
What's the best phone of 2019? Is it the iPhone 11 Pro, Pixel 4 or OnePlus 7T? What about the best laptop, games console, tablet and more? Vote NOW in the Reader's Choice awards and win BIG in time for the holidays!
Here are the best products from IFA 2019!
Here are the products announced at IFA 2019 that were worthy of our Best of IFA 2019 awards. Also featuring MrMobile's single best product at the show!
The best acne masks to unclog your pores and make your face sparkle
Keep your pores clear and your skin sparkling with the best acne masks in the market. Our top pics are...
