Australia's peak consumer communications body, ACCAN has today welcomed the finding of the Federal Court that Google and Apple breached the Competition and Consumer Act by misusing their market power to reduce competition in app markets.
"This decision sends a strong message to the digital giants that Australian consumers and small businesses need to be protected from abuses of market power by digital platforms that own and control these app stores," ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett said.
"While this is a big step forward, we call on the Australian government to advance the digital competition reforms currently being consulted on by Treasury as a priority so that the ACCC can regulate the conduct of these platforms and consumers and small businesses can avoid bearing the significant costs of ongoing anti-competitive behaviour."
"If Australia is serious about addressing poor productivity, we need to be serious about addressing anti-competitive conduct and a lack of competition in digital services markets - which are integral to the success of innovative Australian businesses."
"We need genuine digital competition law reform in Australia to prevent these harms from happening in the first place, rather than requiring regulators, consumers and small businesses to pick up the pieces and seek redress after these platforms abuse their market power."
"Australian consumers and small businesses deserve to reap the benefits of real competition in these markets," Ms Bennett concluded.
About us:
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) is Australia's peak communication consumer organisation. The operation of ACCAN is made possible by funding provided by the Commonwealth of Australia under section 593 of the Telecommunications Act 1997. This funding is recovered from charges on telecommunications carriers.
