Plaintiffs Allege Apple Violates Antitrust Laws With iPhone Browser Requirements

Apple’s agreements with browser developers, including Google, are preventing new mobile platforms from entering the smartphone market in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, alleged a class action Thursday (docket 5:24-cv-00476) against Apple in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.

Apple and Google “have directly conspired to monopolize the market for smartphone operating systems under Section 2 of the Sherman Act,” said the complaint, which names only Apple as a defendant.

Though every app that runs on iPhones must be approved by Apple and deployed through its App Store, another potential way onto iPhones is through the engine that powers the smartphone’s web browser, said the complaint. Apple’s Safari browser relies on such an engine to process and render web pages and execute code that runs through the browser and in native third-party apps, it said.

Apps running on browser engines and in web browsers, progressive web apps (PWAs), have become “incredibly powerful” and in some cases, indistinguishable from native apps distributed through Apple’s App Store, the complaint said. PWAs posed a threat to Apple’s “uncontestable hegemony over apps running on its iPhones” and to its large share of the smartphone and smartphone OS markets in the U.S., it said. With the rise of PWAs, a third-party browser engine “could mean the end of the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store as single points of entry to the entirety of the country’s smartphones,” it said.

To prevent the “cross-platform threat” from emerging, Apple entered into agreements with major browser makers, and “none will deploy their browser engines on iPhone,” the complaint said. “Instead, every web browser on iOS and every iOS app relying on a browser engine must, by agreement, use Apple’s browser called WebKit,” it said. Companies that have developed “full-featured browser engines that could serve as cross-platform launching pads for PWAs across both major mobile ecosystems have agreed with Apple not to do so on iPhone,” it said.

That includes Google, Apple’s “direct, horizontal competitor” in the smartphone and smartphone OS market, the complaint said. Google uses its own browser engine, Blink, on every platform except iOS, on which it released its apps and Chrome web browser with WebKit instead of Blink, the complaint said. “This has prevented Chrome, the world’s number one web browser, from serving as a cross-platform launching pad for PWAs on smartphones,” it said.

Apple also made agreements with Microsoft and Firefox “to forgo their own browser engines and use only WebKit on iOS,” the complaint said. “The result is that every browser on iOS, no matter how branded, is in fact just Apple’s Safari browser, reskinned -- and every iOS app that uses browser engine functionality exclusively uses Apple’s WebKit too,” it said.

By agreeing that a cross-platform browser engine would not be deployed on iOS, Apple and Google have strengthened what plaintiffs have dubbed the Mobile Ecosystem Barrier to Entry, “preventing new entry into the smartphone market, protecting the Apple-Google duopoly in the smartphone OS market, and allowing Apple and Google to maintain a near 100% monopoly over smartphone OSes,” it said.

As a result, Apple has been able to charge “supracompetitive prices” for iPhones in the U.S. without licensing Android from its “co-conspirator Google or creating its own smartphone OS from scratch,” the complaint said. With no successful entry by a smartphone platform to challenge the Apple and Google ecosystems, “there has been no check on the prices Apple charges iPhone customers,” it said.

Plaintiffs are Apple iPhone customers who bought their phones directly from Apple, either in a store or online, the complaint said. Luisa Bakay, a resident of La Jolla, California, bought an iPhone 12 Pro for $1,299 on Nov. 15, 2020, an iPhone 13 Pro Max for $1,599 on Nov. 2, 2021, and an iPhone 14 Pro for $1,399 on Sept. 28, 2022, the complaint said. Elisa Jones of Zion, Illinois, bought an iPhone 12 for $629 on May 24, it said. Plaintiff Leticia Shaw of Los Angeles bought an iPhone 12 for $799 on June 9, 2021, and an iPhone 14 for $829 on Dec. 8, 2022. IPhones, the complaint said, “garner a price premium on comparable hardware” vs. Android phones.

Apple’s agreement with Google not to deploy a non-WebKit browser engine on iOS also “directly harms consumer choice,” the complaint said. Users are “unable to guard against security risks to their smartphones posed by Apple’s repeatedly vulnerable WebKit engine,” it said. That “impedes the functionality and security of Apple’s smartphones and artificially inflates prices for the products above their economic value,” it said.

Apple’s requirement that all iPhone owners use WebKit for all web browsers and apps has left iPhones “devastatingly vulnerable to security breaches,” the complaint said. Apple users “have no choice but to remain sitting ducks for cyberattacks -- they cannot simply use a different browser, and no developers can innovate and improve by developing their own, more secure, browsers,” it said.

For Google, the agreement with Apple “eliminates all of its hard-won product differentiation on 136 million U.S. smartphones,” said the complaint. Google “gives up all of its advancements and improvements" across half of U.S. smartphones, "instead opting to reskin Apple’s Safari browser as ‘Chrome,’” it said.

Apple “has no legitimate technical justification for its agreements regarding WebKit” because the agreements “degrade the functionality and economic value of its smartphones,” the complaint said. Its agreement with Google “directly restrains immediately viable browser engines from deploying on iOS, which in turn prevents smartphone entrants from entering with hardware independent of iOS and Android,” it said. That “directly inflates prices,” it said.

Plaintiffs seek an order temporarily and permanently enjoining Apple from continuing the anticompetitive practices alleged in the complaint; damages, costs and disgorgement; pre- and post-judgment interest; and attorneys’ fees and costs, the complaint said. Apple didn't comment Friday.