Apple Slammed Amazon in the Most Covert Way Ever
Stephen Lam—Reuters
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
June 18, 2014 11:23 AM EDT
This post is in partnership with Fortune, which offers the latest business and finance news. Read the article below originally published at Fortune.com.
If U.S. District Judge Denise Cote needed a reminder that she backed the bully in the 2013 e-book antitrust ruling that made her infamous on the Internet, Apple and Hachette on Tuesday engineered a doozy.
On Monday, Judge Cote received from Apple and 30 states attorneys general the terms of the deal they've cut – presumably a dollar amount in millions — to settle the separate civil case that rode like a room full of expensive suits on Cote's decision. Apple has promised to take its appeal to the Supreme Court, if necessary. (See The big 'if' in Apple's e-book settlement.)
A few hours after the deal was made public, a reporter with good connections with Apple PR posted a screen shot of Hachette titles being discounted on Apple's iTunes bookstore. "Apple is happy," Peter Kafka wrote on Re/Code, in a widely retweeted headline, "to sell you the Hachette books Amazon won't stock."
For the rest of the story, go to Fortune.com.
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