https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/18/u-s-lawmakers-call-for-doj-to-investigate-apple-for-blocking-beepers-imessage-app/

Apple’s move to cut off Beeper, the app that brought iMessage to Android users, already caught the attention of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren who called out the tech giant for anticompetitive behavior. Now, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Apple’s “potential anticompetitive treatment of the Beeper Mini messaging application,” noting that “interoperability and interconnections have long been key drivers of competition and consumer choice in communications services.”

The letter is addressed to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kanter and signed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Mike Lee, Representative Jerry Nadler, and Representative Ken Buck. In it, they note that Dept. Of Commerce had earlier this year described Apple as a “gatekeeper” with a “monopoly position” in its mobile app ecosystem. They also referred to Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky‘s testimony in December 2015 before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, where he had expressed concern that “dominant messages services would use their position to impose barriers to interoperability” and would prevent Beeper from operating.