The Federal Communications Commission is exploring a potential investigation into Apple Inc. over its decision to block Beeper Inc’s iMessage-like application, Beeper Mini.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has called on the agency to probe the tech titan over potential antitrust violations and keeping in mind the agency's Part 14 rules. The code calls for "advanced communications service" to be "accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities." Something Carr said Beeper provided users but was stifled by Apple's actions.
"Beeper bridged the ‘blue bubble — green bubble’ divide that Apple maintains as part of a broader set of walled garden practices that inhibit competition," Carr said on Monday. "Apple’s wider set of exclusionary practices warrant scrutiny by antitrust and competition agencies, but the FCC should also examine this particular incident through the lens of our Part 14 rules on accessibility, usability, and compatibility."
The push from Carr comes after both companies went back and forth on allowing consumers to access Beeper Mini, a mobile application that brings blue bubble iMessage services to Android users, prompted by Apple repeatedly blocking the app. Beeper eventually gave up its efforts to make iMessage work for Android users and said the startup’s efforts were "unsustainable."
Palo Alto-based Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky, former CEO and co-founder of Pebble Technologies and a former partner at YC, launched Beeper Mini last year as a service to render obsolete the invisible social barrier imposed by green and blue text bubbles. It feeds into the company's bigger mission of establishing a multi-network chat support platform — supporting 15 different networks like Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google Chat, Android SMS, iMessage and more.
The potential for a probe now gives Migicovsky hope that regulatory will be able to address user concerns and understand why "Apple banned end-user Mac's just for the sin of having downloaded Beeper."
“We're very excited to see more regulators begin to ask serious questions about Apple's actions,” Migicovsky told the Business Journal.
Late last year lawmakers signed a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a probe of Apple Inc. over potential antitrust law violations following its attempts to disable Beeper’s iMessage-like app. It's a move Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), along with Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Ken Buck (R-CO) said was necessary.
Lawmakers said Beeper Mini posed a threat to Apple’s monopolistic hold on the market by "creating (a) more competitive mobile applications market, which in turn (creates) a more competitive mobile device market." Lawmakers said in the letter, which was addressed to the Justice Department’s top antitrust official Jonathan Kanter, that Apple’s actions eliminate consumer choice and discourage innovation.
"We also fear these types of tactics may more broadly chill future investment and innovation from those that seek to compete with existing digital gatekeepers," the lawmakers wrote.
Klobuchar and Lee are leaders of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on competition policy, antitrust and consumer rights.
Apple and the FCC did not immediately respond to the Business Journal’s request for comment.
Beeper, a company Migicovsky co-founded in 2020 and then took through the Y Combinator program a year later, has raised $11.63 million in funding and was last valued at $81.5 million, according to PitchBook Data. Beeper has backers such as Y Combinator and Samsung Next Ventures.
