The DoJ may investigate Apple for anticompetitive behavior in its battle with Beeper

The New York Times reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Apple over its battle with the makers of the Beeper Mini app.

“The Justice Department has taken interest in the case. Beeper Mini met with the department’s antitrust lawyers on Dec. 12, two people familiar with the meeting said,” per the New York Times (a subscription is required to read the article). “Eric Migicovsky, a co-founder of the app’s parent company, Beeper, declined to comment on the meeting, but the department is in the middle of a four-year-old investigation into Apple’s anticompetitive behavior.

Beeper Mini is an app that allows users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut it down — and promised to continue to do so. And it has despite the Beeper team trying various workarounds.

The NYT also says that the Federal Trade Commission may get involved, as well. An FTC blog post had this to say: In the face of concerns about anticompetitive conduct, companies may claim privacy and security reasons as justifications for refusing to have their products and services interoperate with other companies’ products and services. As an agency that enforces both competition and consumer protection laws, the Commission is uniquely situated to evaluate claims of privacy and data security that implicate competition.