Don’t be a monopolist: the Government hates competition
On the perverse reason why FCC's involvement in Google vs. Apple is a good thing:
There's two sides to this inquiry business. Personally, I come down on the side of this being a very good thing, though admittedly perhaps for the wrong reasons. Specifically, the inquiry will hopefully lead to at least a little more transparency in how apps get approved or rejected.
The author clarifies the legitimate role of the government in this: None:
However, the flip side of this is that Apple simply doesn't owe the developers or the public anything of the sort. Currently, nobody in Cupertino seems to be breaking any actual laws. Exercising bad judgement, maybe--annoying a great deal of developers and consumers, definitely--but not doing anything they're not allowed to do by law. As Sascha Seagan of PC Magazine points out, there's no potential monopoly here, at least not right now. Apple doesn't have a majority in the smartphone market, and they're not preventing Google from continuing to sell products on other platforms. And while it would be great to have Google Voice on the iPhone, and while it doesn't make sense that it was rejected while other VOIP apps are still available, such decisions are down to Apple's business acumen and not a federal agency.
As much as I don't really like Apple (and don't trust Google deep down), I like the government even less and trust it even less. Every action taken by the government, save perhaps for punishing violent criminals, is evil. Sometimes it happens to be necessary, but it still remains evil (if not the action itself, then the fact that action had to be taken by forceful means).
It is said "That government is best which governs least". It's true everywhere (the quote is from Thomas Paine, but there is a similar story ... elsewhere about a wise king who was upset when his subjects praised him for good governing but was pleased when his subjects couldn't care less about the king—when the government works well, it should vanish from your view), and it's true throughout the course of human history. I don't see how it is no longer true now.