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Research: Washington & Apple

By Nick R Brown 16 July 2010 2 Comments

Washington’s Parasites Take Aim at Apple
Cato Institute
David Boaz
July 11, 2010

Boaz looks at the politicians that are making noise about Apple’s trouble with the iPhone.  He believes there is a trend of innovative companies that have come under fire by “Washington’s ‘parasite economy’” that has included government watch dogging of Microsoft and Google.

Boaz asserts that Washington politicians forced Microsoft into playing the DC game of contributing to certain campaigns and hiring certain individuals so that the best interests of the company remained in tact.  Ten years later he believes Google came under foot of the same type of Washintonian and were forced into a similar situation as Microsoft.

He now believes that Apple is next in line for this treatment “after years as a cute little niche player”.  Essentially, because of Apple’s success they are now being watched by groups like the Federal Trade Commission to determine if their products are a threat to competition.  Boaz reports that Apple does not have a committee for campaign contributions and has a much smaller lobbying budget than it’s competition in the marketplace.

Boaz feels that Apple will likely be the next innovator from Silicon Valley to “waste time and energy on protecting their companies instead of thinking up new products and new ways to deliver them to consumers.”

You can read the full article here.

2 Comments »

  • Digital Society » Blog Archive » Was Apple Influenced By DC? said:

    [...] And while Apple announced the press event several days ago, one has to wonder if they were at all influenced by Washington, DC politicians carefully looking into the issue, and a growing eye towards Cupertino by the Federal Trade Commission as I documented in today’s research post. [...]

  • NickRBrown | Blog | Was Apple Influenced By DC? said:

    [...] And while Apple announced the press event several days ago, one has to wonder if they were at all influenced by Washington, DC politicians carefully looking into the issue, and a growing eye towards Cupertino by the Federal Trade Commission as I documented in today’s research post. [...]

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