“Big Apple and the Jungle Giant Slammed with Lawsuit Drama! ๐๐ณ๐ผ”
TL;DR;
Amazon and Apple, titans of tech, are looking down the barrel of a consumer antitrust lawsuit, accused of conspiring to inflate prices of Apple’s products on Amazon’s platform. ๐ธ๐ฑ๐ค The plot thickens as claims suggest this duo sought to suffocate competition by limiting third-party Apple resellers. Sounds a bit fishy, huh? ๐ฃ
The Full Drama:
There’s something rotten in the state of Tech-dom! A federal judge in Seattle has given the green light for a class-action lawsuit against none other than tech titans Apple and Amazon. ๐ฎ๐ก
But what’s the drama? Apparently, the duo is accused of pulling a fast one on us, the consumers, by artificially jacking up the prices of iPhones and iPads sold on Amazon’s platform. Naughty, naughty! ๐๐ฐ๐
Last year, law firm Hagen’s German filed an antitrust lawsuit against these two tech bigwigs. The accusation? A sneaky plot to bump off third-party Apple resellers on Amazon Marketplace, thereby maintaining a premium pricing for Apple goodies. ๐ท๏ธ๐๐ผ
The plot thickens! According to the legal eagles, our tech titans allegedly crafted an “unlawful horizontal agreement” (sounds complicated, doesn’t it?) to diminish competition from third-party merchants. The result? This dastardly deed has allegedly cost us, the consumers. Now that’s not nice, is it? ๐คทโโ๏ธ๐
The lawsuit alleges that this dirty deal drastically dropped the number of third-party sellers of Apple products on Amazon Marketplace from 600 to just a lucky seven! That’s a 98% reduction, folks!๐๐
The claim centers around a secret handshake that happened at the beginning of 2019, an agreement that neither Apple nor Amazon denies. What’s more, the deal supposedly allowed Apple to limit the number of resellers on Amazon, and in return, Amazon got a sweet deal on wholesale prices for iPhones and iPads. Talk about win-win! Or is it? ๐ค๐
Before this deal, Amazon was known as a vibrant marketplace brimming with third-party resellers offering Apple products at discount prices. These resellers were a hit with the consumers (duh, who doesn’t love a bargain?), but according to the lawsuit, their existence threatened Apple and Amazon’s bottom line. ๐ฑ๐จ๐ฐ
So now we’ve got to ask, did these tech giants really conspire to fatten their wallets at the cost of consumer choice and fair prices? And more importantly, are we okay with such shenanigans? ๐ต๐ฅ๐ค
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Turnt Up News does not endorse any investment, health, or legal decision related to this news.
Now it’s your turn to chip in! What do you think about this alleged collusion between Amazon and Apple? Should our tech overlords be allowed to play god with market competition? And what does this mean for us, the consumers, in a world increasingly dominated by big tech? Let’s get the conversation started! ๐ญ๐๐ฒ