I will only suggest that it's a little weird to say that censorship and suppression of competitors is a prerogative of a company when it's not a monopoly, but then once that monopoly line is crossed it's not ok anymore.
IANAL, but this was how post-Bork antitrust law was described to me.
When a small company engages in lock-in/anti-competitive practices, you can't really make the argument that consumers are being hurt, because if that were true, they would just buy the competitor's product. The iPhone, for instance, exists in a smartphone market with multiple players (Blackberry, HTC, Palm, etc), and if consumers decide that Apple has gone too far, they'll simply buy a different phone next time. But if a company had a monopoly (which MSFT had in operating systems during the late 90s), there are no real options for consumers. The company could partake in anti-consumer activities without fear of market retribution. In those cases, the courts usually intervene to ensure consumer protection.
I still think that's anti-competitive douchebaggery. iTunes has become the standard platform for organizing music, thanks to the success of the iPod. I think it has elevated to a position where Apple should have to tread carefully in anti-competitive waters.
All the information in your iTunes library, including playlists and such, is stored in an open XML file in your home directory. While I think it's a mistake for Apple to play cat-and-mouse with Palm over this, it's not as if Palm couldn't write their own syncing background app that does the exact same thing.
How is that anti-competitive? Apple has done absolutely nothing to prevent Palm from creating a a competing product to either iTunes or the iPod/iPhone. They have in fact given Palm a very strong incentive to do so instead of parasitically hijacking Apple's software.
IANAL, but this was how post-Bork antitrust law was described to me.
When a small company engages in lock-in/anti-competitive practices, you can't really make the argument that consumers are being hurt, because if that were true, they would just buy the competitor's product. The iPhone, for instance, exists in a smartphone market with multiple players (Blackberry, HTC, Palm, etc), and if consumers decide that Apple has gone too far, they'll simply buy a different phone next time. But if a company had a monopoly (which MSFT had in operating systems during the late 90s), there are no real options for consumers. The company could partake in anti-consumer activities without fear of market retribution. In those cases, the courts usually intervene to ensure consumer protection.