[nugget]

In tightly controlled ecosystems the default state is effectively what most consumers will keep and use. This is sometimes informally called the power of default. Entire billion dollar markets can rise and fall based on something as simple as an opt-out versus opt-in policy. It's a little like that Supreme Court ruling that said ''the power to tax is the power to destroy''. The power of default is not much different especially when you control the entire underlying OS. Anti-trust regulators are right to focus on what these default settings are.

[bduerst]

So is Apple preinstalling iTunes as the default music service antitrust too?

[nugget]

If Apple had vast majority of market share, pre-installed iTunes, integrated iTunes functionality throughout the OS so that it had more intuitive prominence than other competing services, then yes, that would be close to the definition of antitrust as I understand it (using dominant control in one market to create or maintain dominant control in a second market). This is what Microsoft was penalized for, appropriately, with Windows and the browser market.

[bduerst]

Got it - that makes much more sense.

[mingfli]

It could be if iOS or OSX dominated the market share, but I don't think that's the case right now.