Jason Kincaid 写道 "两天前，苹果表示将对其平台上订阅内容（报刊，杂志，音乐）收取30％的分成。这一决定很快在网上引起激烈的争论，争论的主要原因是：对于一个明显对消费者不利的决定，为何仍有很多人为苹果辩护。 这一收费政策中很重要的一条：不得因为提成而采取差别定价。一个其他平台卖7元的商品，在苹果商店要卖10元才能达到同样赢利，但因为不能采取差别定价，最终会在所有平台取一个折中的统一定价，例如9元。这样的结果就是，其他平台用户的付出中有一部分实质上是在补贴苹果用户。作为一个消费者，不论你是否是苹果用户，都应该对此感到愤怒，而不是为其收费的合理性辩护。" 《华尔街日报》引用消息人士的话声称，美国反托拉斯监管部门调查人员已经开始调查苹果的分成协议。
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Regulators Eye Apple Anew Enforcers Interested in Whether Digital-Subscription Rules Stifle Competition
By THOMAS CATAN And NATHAN KOPPEL
WASHINGTON—U.S. antitrust enforcers have begun looking at the terms Apple Inc. set this week for media companies who want to sell their content on its popular iPad and other devices, according to people familiar with the matter.
Thomas Catan explains why U.S. antitrust enforcers have begun looking at the terms Apple set this week for media companies who want to sell their content on its popular iPad and other devices.
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission's interest in Apple's new subscription service is at a preliminary stage, and might not develop into either a formal investigation or any action against the company. But it comes as Apple has attracted growing antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, said Thursday that the commission was aware of the new subscription service and was "carefully monitoring the situation."
The Justice Department and the FTC are both interested in examining whether Apple is running afoul of U.S. antitrust laws by funneling media companies' customers into the payment system for its iTunes store—and taking a 30% cut, the people familiar with the situation said. The agencies both enforce federal antitrust laws and would have to decide which one of them would take the lead in the matter.
Representatives of the Justice Department, the FTC and Apple all declined to comment.
Apple's rules don't stop media companies from selling digital subscriptions on their own. But the company imposed restrictions that could make that option less attractive to customers, and steer more sales through its own system.
Apple keeps a tight grip over almost every aspect of its iPad tablet, iPhone and iPod music and video player. It decides which applications can run on them, and the devices work only with content delivered through its iTunes store.
That level of control has drawn complaints from publishers unhappy with the company's subscription-sales terms.
Under Apple's terms for the new service, companies that sell digital subscriptions to content on Apple devices would be required to make it available for sale through apps at the company's iTunes App Store at the best available price.
Buying magazine or other subscriptions through the iTunes store would require just a few clicks and use billing details already on file, giving users an incentive to use Apple's system. Apple would prohibit media companies' apps from linking to stores outside its App Store or from offering better terms to subscribers elsewhere, making it difficult for them to attract buyers to their own sites. Legal experts say some of those rules could pose antitrust problems.
Banning apps from linking to external sites "sounds like a pretty aggressive position," said Eric Goldman, director of Santa Clara University's High Tech Law Institute. "It seems like that's purely in the interests of Apple trying to restrict people doing transactions they don't get a cut from."
Law professors say Apple's new subscription service could potentially draw antitrust scrutiny, as questions arise about whether Apple is exerting anti-competitive pressures on prices. Plus: Google introduces 'One Pass' for publishers. Nathan Koppel and Peter Kafka discuss on digits.
Apple's condition that its own customers should get the best deal available from media companies could also attract scrutiny. Such conditions, sometimes known as "most favored nation" clauses, can be deemed anticompetitive if they distort pricing.
The Justice Department recently sued a Michigan health-insurance company for allegedly using such clauses to hobble rivals.
Online music companies said Apple's 30% commission would cut too deeply into their profit margins. The rate "is so obviously anticompetitive that it will never survive in Europe," said Axel Dauchez, the president of Deezer, a French company that sells subscriptions to its digital music library of 10 million songs.
Jon Irwin, the president of Rhapsody International Inc., which sells online music subscriptions through apps on Apple and other mobile devices, said his company would be squeezed by having to pay royalties to the owners of the music it sells online as well as a 30% cut to Apple. "The costs don't leave any room for a sensible business model," he said.
Antitrust officials in the U.S. and abroad may be hard-pressed to conclude that Apple's 30% commission is excessive, antitrust experts said, partly because it will be difficult to determine a benchmark commission rate for digital subscriptions. "The European Commission has been reluctant in the past to second-guess pricing as it is a complex exercise, and the commission does not want to become a price regulator," said Damien Geradin, a professor of competition law at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
To make a case against Apple, antitrust enforcers would have to show that Apple has market power and is abusing it. That depends on how they define a market. Apple's iPhone is the phone of choice for many affluent consumers, but it has only a 16% share of smartphone sales and a sliver of the broader mobile-phone market.
Apple accounts for about three-quarters of world-wide tablet-computer sales, but that share could fall fast as a slate of competitors become available.
Antitrust enforcers would also have to determine to what extent media companies need to be on Apple devices, or whether other alternatives are available. Making that determination won't be easy in a fast-changing market.
Google Inc. on Wednesday launched its own subscription service with terms that seemed far more attractive to publishers. Google will allow publishers to keep at least 90% of the subscription price for their publications and give them greater control over valuable subscriber information.
If media companies abandon its devices, Apple could suffer greatly. Nearly half of all tablet owners use iPads to read newspapers and magazines, according to a recent survey by Forrester Research. Apple also would have the option of changing its practices, if need be, to head off any possible formal action by antitrust regulators.
Last year, the Justice Department began examining whether Apple's practices in the music business were anticompetitive. In the U.S., Apple controls around 70% of online music sales and has more of the overall music market than Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to market research firm NPD Group.
At around the same time, the FTC started looking at the company's App Store. In particular, the FTC examined Apple's rules preventing app developers from using tools made by software maker Adobe Inc. It also investigated restrictions that appeared to impede Google's ability to effectively serve ads on Apple devices, something that potentially gave Apple's own ad service an edge in a fast-growing market.
In September, Apple backed down on both issues, revising its rules and taking the heat out of that investigation.
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