You make a good point, and I won't argue over the definition of a monopoly. I will only suggest that it's a little weird to say that censorship and suppression of competitors is a prerogative of a company when it's not a monopoly, but then once that monopoly line is crossed it's not ok anymore. How do you know when that line has been crossed? And if you cross back the other way, are you allowed to restart with anti-competitive practices again?
I will only suggest that it's a little weird to say that censorship and suppression of competitors is a prerogative of a company when it's not a monopoly, but then once that monopoly line is crossed it's not ok anymore.
IANAL, but this was how post-Bork antitrust law was described to me.
When a small company engages in lock-in/anti-competitive practices, you can't really make the argument that consumers are being hurt, because if that were true, they would just buy the competitor's product. The iPhone, for instance, exists in a smartphone market with multiple players (Blackberry, HTC, Palm, etc), and if consumers decide that Apple has gone too far, they'll simply buy a different phone next time. But if a company had a monopoly (which MSFT had in operating systems during the late 90s), there are no real options for consumers. The company could partake in anti-consumer activities without fear of market retribution. In those cases, the courts usually intervene to ensure consumer protection.
I still think that's anti-competitive douchebaggery. iTunes has become the standard platform for organizing music, thanks to the success of the iPod. I think it has elevated to a position where Apple should have to tread carefully in anti-competitive waters.
All the information in your iTunes library, including playlists and such, is stored in an open XML file in your home directory. While I think it's a mistake for Apple to play cat-and-mouse with Palm over this, it's not as if Palm couldn't write their own syncing background app that does the exact same thing.
How is that anti-competitive? Apple has done absolutely nothing to prevent Palm from creating a a competing product to either iTunes or the iPod/iPhone. They have in fact given Palm a very strong incentive to do so instead of parasitically hijacking Apple's software.
Governments censor. People and companies make editorial decisions regarding what they will say, do, or distribute. As to "suppression of competitors" I think we all tend to lump this into the category of "being in the business of making money." If I write a letter to my local paper and they do not print it they have not engaged in censorship.
The app store is like a giant department store. If I make a widget I can't walk in to wal-mart and demand that they put it on the shelves. Even if the pornulator3000(tm) would fly off the shelves and make both wal-mart and I a ton of cash they are still under no obligation to stock my product if they think it will hurt their reputation or standing in the community (e.g. turn them into "the store where you go to get that wink-wink nudge-nudge massage device...")
If Apple had a monopoly position they would be the _only_ store in town. That is clearly not the case. They may be the hottest, most-hyped store in town but consumers clearly have other choices.
I'm always tired of the "it's not censorship if it's not the government" argument, because that's not any sensible definition of the word "censorship". I would argue that Apple does censor what is available at the App Store, just as Wal-Mart and the music labels censor the music that's available for sale there by having to sell the "clean" version, or that a newspaper censors itself or indeed its letters to the editor if it refuses to publish things that are uncomplimentary to its business partners or the government. Likewise, the "standards and practices" division at a TV network is universally known as "the censors" among writers and producers, probably because they're the ones that tell you what parts of the script you can't air.
All of this is censorship. What it isn't is a violation of anyone's legal rights to freedom of expression.
