Apple will reportedly face EU antitrust charges this week

I'm linking to The Verge, since the original FT article is locked behind a paywall.

The European Commission will issue antitrust charges against Apple over concerns about the company's App Store practices, according to a report from the Financial Times. The commission has been investigating whether Apple has broken EU competition rules with its App Store policies, following an initial complaint from Spotify back in 2019 over Apple's 30 percent cut on subscriptions.

The European Commission opened up two antitrust investigations into Apple's App Store and Apple Pay practices last year, and the Financial Times only mentions upcoming charges on the App Store case. It's not clear yet what action will be taken.

I'm glad both the US and EU are turning up the heat under Apple (and the other major technology companies), since their immense market power and clear-cut cases of abuse have to end. I am a strict proponent of doing what the United States used to be quite good at, and that's breaking Apple and Google up into smaller companies forced to compete with one another and the rest of the market. The US has done it countless times before, and they should do it again.

In this specific case, Apple should be divided up into Mac hardware, mobile hardware, software (macOS, iOS, and applications), and services. This would breath immense life into the market, and would create countless opportunities for others to come in and compete. The US has taken similar actions with railroads, oil, airplanes, and telecommunications, and the technology market should be no different.