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CEO of Apple, Tim Cook
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Apple's shares fell on Monday after Reuters said the Justice Department was considering an investigation by the iPhone maker.
The agency has been empowered to investigate the company's practices as part of a broad review of potentially anti-competitive behavior among large companies in the tech sector, Reuters reported, citing two sources.
The stock fell nearly 2% following the release of the report, after rising earlier in the day. Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, present updates to the company's core software at the annual International Developers Conference.
The Nasdaq Composite index, highly technology-driven, fell on Monday after similar regulatory headlines blunted tech giants Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Earlier Monday, the Wall Street Journal announced that the Federal Trade Commission will examine how Facebook's practices affect digital competition. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that Amazon had been the subject of increased scrutiny on the part of US regulators. And Friday, the Journal announced that the Department of Justice is preparing a Google survey, lowering the shares of the parent company Alphabet more than 7% Monday.
The possible Apple probe is linked to the Google probe, reported Reuters, and stems from meetings between the DOJ and the FTC.
Together, the stocks describe an impressive picture for Silicon Valley and the most profitable companies in the stock market. Large-scale technologies have long been the subject of scrutiny by European regulators, but have so far ignored calls for government regulation in the United States.
Apple has been attracting more and more criticism in recent months about what some – including the streaming giant Spotify – see as anti-competitive behavior on the App Store. Apple owns and operates the online market, collecting subscription fees from developers.
The so-called "Apple" tax represents a sizeable percentage of the burgeoning segment of services, but attracts the likes of developers who in some cases compete with Apple's own apps in the store.
The complaint filed by Spotify against Apple in Europe, filed in March, is pending investigation by the European authorities.
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