Another day, another lawsuit. Rave Inc., the developer and operator of the Rave app, has filed antitrust lawsuits against Apple in five countries: the United States, Canada, Brazil, the Netherlands and Russia.
The lawsuits challenge Apple’s unilateral and anticompetitive decision to remove Rave from its App Store, “thereby distorting competition, reducing consumer choice in co-viewing functionalities and increasing the costs to users of switching between iPhone and competing smartphone devices.”
Rave operates a social entertainment app that allows users in different locations to watch their favorite videos, movies, and TV shows together in real time across multiple operating systems and devices, including iOS, macOS, Android, and Windows — and communicate through chat and voice.
Rave alleges that this cross-platform experience threatened Apple’s closed iOS ecosystem, which Apple maintains by limiting the ways that iPhone users can interact with non-Apple devices or services, according to CEO Michael Pazaratz. The company further alleges that Apple removed Rave from the App Store “to monopolize the market for smartphone co-viewing by restricting iPhone users to its own, iPhone-exclusive co-viewing service, SharePlay, eliminating a product that competed with Apple and gave users freedom of choice across devices and platforms and replacing it with one that steers users to Apple’s devices and services,” he adds.
“Apple’s harm to Rave extends beyond the App Store,” Pazaratz claims. “Despite Apple never expressing any concerns about Rave’s Mac app, Apple began blocking Rave on macOS, falsely and maliciously telling users ‘Malware Blocked and Moved to Trash. ‘Rave.app’ was not opened because it contains malware’.”
Rave’s lawsuits seek to restore iOS and macOS access for Rave users, and recover damages related to its arbitrary and anticompetitive removal from the App Store and false malware designation of Rave’s Mac application. Additional information, including legal filings and information about Rave’s claims, is available at SaveRave.com.
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