On Saturday the Justice department sued 3 publishing companies for colluding on eBook prices. These three companies were the Hachette Book Group, Simon and Schuster, and HaprerCollins. These three companies agreed to settle after their backroom business communications were uncovered. This price colluding scheme cost consumers an extra tens of millions of dollars. The collusion was a response to Amazon's attempt to promote there eBook device the Kindle by lowering there base price of new books to 9.99$. Apple's plan was to have book publishers sell through Apple while they took 30% commision instead of their previous wholesale model which publishers had been using previously. The wholesale model charged retailers 50% of the cover price for a book and then allowed retailers to set their own sale price. Apple's shadowy attempts to overcome Amazon's overwhelming market share and reduced retail prices breaks business ethics. This lawsuit shows that Apple is more interested in maximizing profit than providing the consumer with the best and most affordable product. From this lawsuit, "The publishers that have settled have agreed in principle to provide more than $51 million in restitution to consumers who bought e-books".
More information can be found at: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/justice-files-suit-against-apple-and-publishers-over-e-book-pricing/
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