

Apple's Star Chamber - replicatorblog
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304355104579236261045331876

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davidgerard
What a terrible article.

~~~
gress
It is a badly written screed, but it rings true.

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davidgerard
They were found guilty, and paying a truly trivial percentage of their income
from the business unit in question to monitor compliance is part of that. The
article rings true only as sincerely entitled whining.

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fennecfoxen
Allow me to inquire with you, then.

The WSJ alleges extralegal abuses. "Mr. Bromwich has rewritten his job
description to investigate Apple all over again, not simply monitor if Apple
is abiding by the terms of the court judgment while it appeals the case."

Are the allegations a lie? Alternatively, is the extralegal abuse justified
somehow and, if so, how?

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davidgerard
The allegations are a whiny slant on the facts: if you breach antitrust -
which is in fact a pretty grievous offence against free enterprise - you get
checked in considerable detail. None of this is unusual.

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fennecfoxen
It sounds like you do not dispute that the investigator is extralegal and
inconsistent with the normal mechanisms of justice. You seem to be okay with
this because the "grievous offence against free enterprise" justifies it even
if the law does not.

which I think is very banana-republic of you

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davidgerard
If he was "extralegal", he'd be out of there already. It's not like Apple is
short of legal resources.

They were found guilty of antitrust offences. This is what happens when that
happens. I appreciate you don't like this, but that doesn't change that (a)
they did a bad thing (b) they were busted (c) this is the consequences (d)
entitled whining in the WSJ doesn't change that.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Okay. So now it sounds like you believe it's _not_ extralegal because if it
was extralegal something would have been done about it already.

I find your level of faith in the justice system disturbing. Even the ability
of rich corporations to rectify any sort of judicial or systematic abuse is
quite limited (and God help you if you're an ordinary human being). This has
been especially the case (but not exclusively the case) under our current
administration: the Chrysler bankruptcy, for instance, where UAW pensions were
granted seniority over bondholders in an inversion of all previous law and
precedent. What are you going to do about it? Sue the government?

Moreover, there is a price to fighting back. If Apple were to seek the legal
action, what's to stop them from being investigated again on trumped-up
charges as a pure act of revenge?

(Next thing you'll tell me is that NSA wiretapping everyone and their dog is
clearly 100% fourth-amendment legal because if it were illegal the courts
would have shut it down already.)

