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?

Amazon, Google Sweat During Apple-DOJ Trial

Lost in the flash blast of the NSA data mining revelations was today's Apple-DOJ court case highlights. Witnesses included Google's director of strategic partnerships, whose testimony was cut to ribbons by Apple's lead attorney, according to a story in theverge.com. Today's star, however, was Amazon vice president for Kindle content Russ Grandinetti. Many observers were especially keen to hear what a typically "no comment" senior management Amazon official would say under oath. Also, there was more than a little suspicion about the Seattle company's motives, as this Obama administration darling was widely viewed as the stimulant for the antitrust complaint.

Amazon VP Russ Grandinetti
(photo: engadget.com)

Grandinetti answered all questions except one -- the key one. According to a report that appeared in macdailynews.com, the Amazon VP said he was not "'comfortable discussing the contents of a January 24, 2010 meeting held in Amazon boss' Jeff Bezos' Seattle boathouse. He quickly went from uncomfortable to silent: "Although Grandinetti wouldn't say anything about the meeting in Bezos' boathouse -- not even if Bezos attended it -- documents presented into evidence showed that the next day, Jan. 25, Amazon began developing its own terms for an agency contract. Those terms, as it turns out, were remarkably similar to the ones Apple was negotiating with the publishers...Those terms are among the ones the government has characterized in Apple's contracts as part of an illegal scheme to fix prices."

Jeff Bezos' boathouse
(photo: forbes.com)

One can imagine why Grandinetti was "not comfortable." Had he acknowledged Bezos' attendance, that assertion would have implied the Amazon capo's involvement in this critical meeting. Well, maybe Bezos is the kind of secretive billionaire who indulges his employees and lets them have Sunday meetings at his private boathouse, since Jeff wasn't using it. (Of course, we have to take Bezos' absence on faith, don't we?)  Maybe Bezos will give Russ and friends the keys to his automobiles, a way into the kitchen in case they're hungry, a change of clothes for a swim. Are you buying this story?

Whose idea was to have the meeting at the Amazon CEO's boathouse?