The Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general on Thursday sued Apple, accusing the tech giant of breaking federal antitrust law by creating an ecosystem that doesn’t allow other companies to compete with the iPhone, smothering innovation in the smartphone market. 

“Apple has consolidated its monopoly power not by making its own products better, but by making other products worse,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference Thursday. “Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law.”

The complaint alleged the company maintains a smartphone monopoly by preventing others from building applications that compete with Apple’s staples, like the digital wallet. The tech giant also makes other companies’ technology more difficult to pair with Apple products, as exemplified by the green bubbles that the iPhone shows when texting an Android user.

Garland said Apple was willing to “make the iPhone less secure and less private in order to maintain its monopoly power.”

Responding to the lawsuit, Apple said it threatens “the principles that set Apple products apart in fiercely competitive markets” and it would “set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”

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