The government is not getting involved because people want to have their cake and eat it to, (although that is a pretty good default assumption), but because there appears to be collusion involving regulated resources.
As for violating regulations, please find for me the regulation that they have violated. It seems to me that their present sin consists of doing something unpopular.
Apple and AT&T should have every right to be as opaque as they want. If you don't support their policies and pricing, switch to another carrier and buy another phone.
In a completely non-monopolistic scenario, which this is, the government should have no concern whether a company's action's harm customers or not, since the customer has complete choice in whether to buy the service or not.
This is precisely a situation in which the customer wants to have his cake and eat it too. Regulated resources are by definition a case when the customer wants to have his cake and eat it too.
The FCC said why they wanted this information. They wanted this information as part of its examination of net neutrality and exclusive phones. The FCC doesn't even look at collusion and antitrust - the FTC does.
The idea that there's some monolithic "government" is juvenile at best.
Thank you. It should, however, be noted that as Goldman Sachs rehires, the government will get bigger. Oh wait, I forgot that I'm not Matt Taibbi, so scratch that last sentence.
Are you serious? Do you pay attention to what goes on at all?
Um, no, not with government-administered public airwaves, they don't.
The FCC is investigating to see if any regulations had been violated; proof and a finding of guilt or innocence will come later, but it seems to me there is probable cause to investigate at this point.
Unfortunately, the iPhone is NOT a publicly owned natural resource, but maybe phone numbers are.
Congress has passed legislative caveats around the DMCA for cell phones. Meaning you can unlock them. Well at least I haven't seen Apple or anyone else yet sue someone or call the FBI for someone doing so. So I guess they don't want to test the waters around whatever legislation actually was passed (of course, I don't read hundreds of pages of legislation, so I'm speaking off stuff I"ve read about it). The purpose of such legislation is part of enabling consumers to not be bound to a carrier. I don't know what else exists, but its clear Congress has made some progress on letting cell manufactures know that carrier freedom is on the landscape.