Justice Dept to Apple: Open iPhone and iPad to Amazon.com apps

The Washington Post reported that a recent US District Court ruling against Apple has opened the legal door for the Amazon-friendly Department of Justice and a majority of the nation's state attorneys-general to make commercial demands on the late Steve Jobs' company. The government's brief included demands that Apple open its e-book store to competitors' links. This is supposedly being done so that consumers can have access to "competitive pricing."

However, the Feds' Amazon-friendly lawyers didn't stop there. The demand expands the judge's intent to include any digitial and print content, including video, streaming movies, printed books, and music. It's clear that the DOJ's demand, as Apple attorneys noted, goes well beyond the district court's ruling. The DOJ's broadside's impact obviously benefits Amazon, under the guise of "helping consumers." The Justice Department brief did not mention the data collection Amazon and others would be able to reap as a result of opening Apple's walled shopping garden. There's money -- big money -- in the data, as Amazon has amply demonstrated. I suppose the DOJ was absent from that presentation.

The story, unsurprisingly, was reported on a slow news summer Friday. Most media outlets, including Silicon Valley and Seattle outlets, played down the story's implications, with the The New York Times' ho-hum account of the episode doing the light lifting for many mainstream publications. The irony is that Amazon has experienced a fabulous week with Barack Obama and friends, and no one really wants to ask why.

Here's this week's Obama Administration-Amazon scorecard:

• President Obama visits an Amazon warehouse, touting its $11/hour jobs as an entry point to the middle-class. The story gets national coverage.
• POTUS 44 offers Amazon a one-on-one interview exclusive.
• The interview is available for free via amazon.com as an "Amazon Single". (Does anyone think it's available at Apple or Barnes & Noble?)
• The DOJ hammers Apple's content merchandising advantage and essentially demands that Apple accept becoming a free gateway and data collector for Amazon sales.

If Mitt Romney or George W. Bush had shown such blatant favortism to a corporation, liberals would have screamed. They're notably silent on the Amazon issue, perhaps because they're addicted to shiny Kindles.

Again, I ask the question: Why is President Obama and his administration so tight with Jeff Bezos' Amazon?