Coronavirus Reporter v. Apple
Coronavirus Reporter v. Apple
)
Coronavirus Reporter )
Plaintiff, ) Case CV-2021-
)
vs. )
) COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES
Apple Inc. ) AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
Defendant. )
)
)
)
) DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
)
Case 1:21-cv-00047-LM Document 1 Filed 01/19/21 Page 2 of 21
I. INTRODUCTION
1. In February 2020, the Plaintiff formed an ad hoc group of health care and Dartmouth
Reporter.” The COVID-19 pandemic was named on February 11, 2020. The first death in
France on February 14 was followed by an outbreak in Italy, and the United States
reported its first death on February 29. The Coronavirus Reporter app was completed on
March 3, 2020, at which time there was not a single Coronavirus app on the Apple iOS
App Store. While some debate existed, most of the United States population, government
scientists, and healthcare experts did not predict the rapid extent to which COVID would
spread nationally and globally. Within a month, the United States led the world in
confirmed cases, social distancing became a familiar term, and millions lost their jobs.
2. The Coronavirus Reporter application (“the app”) was developed to capture and obtain
critical biostatistical and epidemiological data as it happened. For the first time in the
history of pandemics, social media could provide new insights of an entire population
that simply could not be obtained from traditional doctor office visits and other screening
methods. The app’s operation was a simple and familiar “geolocation” map where users
would self-identify disease symptoms such as cough, fever, or other yet to be discovered
symptoms.
3. In response to the emerging crisis, on March 3, the same day the app was complete,
Apple announced that applications dealing with coronavirus would only be allowed from
university.” Plaintiff’s app was rejected on these grounds. On appeal, Plaintiff requested
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that Apple expand the rule to allow corporations other than insurance companies, such as
biotechnology or bioinformatics firms. Apple agreed, and added health care corporations
to the list of permissible entities. Apple was then provided with supporting and
Chief Physician at NASA during the Space Race, and the former President of multiple
4. After a very long twenty days of waiting, Apple informed Plaintiff that the Coronavirus
Reporter app would not be permitted on the App Store. Apple alleged that Coronavirus
Reporter was not a recognized healthcare company. Additionally, Apple stated that the
“user-generated data has not been vetted for accuracy by a reputable source.” In other
words, Apple told Plaintiff a self-reported symptoms model was not acceptable for the
pandemic.
5. About one month after rejecting Plaintiff’s app, Apple permitted several employees at a
London teaching hospital to distribute a COVID app on the App Store that functioned
nearly identically to Coronavirus Reporter. That competing app obtained the so-called
6. In the following months, Apple formed a partnership with Google and several other
universities to create a contact-tracing COVID app. After much delay, the contact-tracing
App launched in Summer 2020. Although contact-tracing has worked in some limited
scope, much resistance in this country exists. The Apple contact-tracing app generally
underperformed expectations and failed to obtain a user base in the United States.
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7. The Sherman Act prohibits monopolization of any part of the trade or commerce among
several States, or with foreign nations. Likewise, the Sherman Act prohibits every
contract or conspiracy in restraint of trade among several States, or with foreign nations.
8. The internet was developed by DARPA, a research and development division of the
United States Department of Defense. ARPANET was the first packet switched
distributed TCP/IP network, the backbone foundation of what we today call the internet.
infrastructure linking persons around the country and the globe. Considerable taxpayer
dollars funded DARPA, and continue to fund urban and rural infrastructure rollout of
TCP/IP (internet) data services through fiber optics, wireless spectrum allocations, and
9. The COVID pandemic serves as a prime example of how ARPANET and its subsequent
emergency.
10. As ARPANET and the internet developed over time, many of its characteristic distributed
networking features have become compromised by the growth of corporate entities that
monopolistic trust, as defined by the Sherman Act, could seriously restrict interstate
commerce, and the free exchange of information. A computer scientist who writes
software applications that rely upon a free and open internet may be encumbered, should
one of these monopolistic trusts destroy access to the internet’s free markets and
information exchanges.
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11. Defendant Apple Inc. did just that, denying millions of citizens the benefit of
physician. Indeed, that physician had particular experience in dealing with novel medical
situations as exemplified by the fact that he personally gave astronauts the green light to
12. Nearly 60% of users and 80% of paid internet commerce access the national internet
backbone using Apple devices. For many millions of these users, their de facto access to
the internet relies upon using an iOS device. Consider, for example, children or elderly
who have been taught to access the internet using a relative’s Apple device and have
13. Apple has restricted trade, communication, and free information exchange, all in
12. Venue in the New Hampshire District is proper under 15 U.S.C. § 22, which states that
any suit proceeding under antitrust laws against a corporation may be brought in any
Additionally, some officers of the Plaintiff corporation reside in New Hampshire and did
not personally waive venue via the Apple Developer Agreement. It is also alleged that the
venue waiver is a monopolistic contract that is forced upon any developer who wishes to
make applications that access the national internet backbone, and is itself a violation of
the Sherman Act. Furthermore, it is alleged that Apple would have an unfair advantage if
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all antitrust actions had to be litigated in the Northern California district, where Apple
13. Jurisdiction in this Court for a permanent injunction arises under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, for
III. PARTIES
14. Plaintiff’s Coronavirus Reporter is a Wyoming Corporation with officers based in New
Hampshire, Vermont, and Upstate NY. Coronavirus Reporter is also the name of the
Plaintiff’s iOS application, which uses the national internet background to allow citizens
transacted business under the name Calid. Plaintiff asserts standing as both a corporation,
and additionally as the collective individual persons comprising the corporation, who
have no contractual relationship with the Defendant and never signed the Apple
Developer Agreeement.
15. Defendant Apple Inc. is a California corporation with its principal place of business in
Cupertino. Apple is the largest public company in the world, with a current market
(the iPhone) and computers (the Mac), which functionally rely upon and profit
immensely from access to the taxpayer-funded national internet backbone. Apple owns
and operates the App Store, which serves as a distribution gateway to the national
internet backbone for third-party developers. Pending related litigation against Apple by
Epic Inc. alleges that Apple violates antitrust law by disallowing competing app stores
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designed by third parties. Notably, this lawsuit does not seek any additional “app stores,”
rather an injunction preventing the Apple App Store from disallowing applications of
words, the Apple App Store violates antitrust law by disallowing third-party applications
using arbitrary and capricious standards meant to camouflage Apple’s own self-interest
16. Introductory paragraphs preceding this paragraph are asserted herein and responsive
17. Apple operates the App Store, and has exclusive control over iOS applications and their
18. The national TCP/IP internet backbone was built, at least in part, using taxpayer dollars
for ARPANET.
19. Apple has profited immensely from the existence of the national internet backbone.
20. Without the internet, and the taxpayer dollars that built it, Apple would not enjoy the $2
21. The Apple smartphone ecosystem is primarily a graphical user interface software (iOS)
22. Apple relies upon third-party applications, such as Coronavirus Reporter, to provide a
23. Apple initially developed the App Store to serve as a quality control gateway, ensuring
apps functioned to a satisfactory standard and didn’t contain software bugs or illegal
content.
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24. Over the years, Apple has taken a more authoritarian approach to the App Store and has
25. At the time Plaintiff submitted Coronavirus Reporter to the App Store, there were zero
26. Plaintiff’s nimble team allowed it to create the first COVID app. The team included
NASA’s former Chief Physician, and a Dartmouth computer scientist who personally
developed apps used by half a billion users. In short, Plaintiff possessed the immediate
expertise to combine health care epidemiology research with large-scale data operations,
27. Apple was basically unable to handle Plaintiff’s submission; they didn’t expect to have a
28. Apple internal discussions with its own partners, at the time, were already discussing
their own proprietary COVID app. Apple was also looking to form partnerships with
other leading institutions to develop COVID apps, that would further cement Apple’s
29. The Coronavirus Reporter app was developed in February 2020, by an expert team of
doctors and computer scientists. Their team, and the application they developed, was a
reasonable application, and, most importantly, was ready for deployment when COVID
was just arriving in the United States. The Coronavirus Reporter app, had it been
allowed, would likely have provided useful bioinformatics data, and provided a medium
for free information exchange among United States citizens and COVID patients.
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30. The app had a familiar and intuitive geolocation screen to report symptoms and view
nearby outbreaks.
31. Little was known about COVID symptoms at the time, and the app was meant to develop
with nimbleness and plasticity as situations emerged. In other words, the same skills
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Plaintiff employed to have the first COVID app, would allow for many future-improved
32.
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33. The app did not vet user medical information, because the public demanded information
that simply wasn’t yet available from mainstream medical institutions. In other words, a
34. Apple rejected Coronavirus Reporter on March 6, 2020, knowing others were in the
pipeline but not yet ready. Apple specifically strategized to prevent Plaintiff’s app from
setting a precedent or amassing a user base, which could jeopardize its own pipeline
trust.
35. Apple’s App Review Board did not possess anyone with better COVID insight or
credentials Plaintiff’s Chief Medical Officer, though Apple acted as if they did have some
36. Plaintiff’s Chief Medical Officer created work-product, the app, that could have
benefitted millions. Apple used arbitrary and capricious standards to prevent that benefit
38. Apple has the ability to, and has in the past, restrained legally permissible, reasonable
internet trade.
39. In the weeks following the initial rejection, with knowledge of Plaintiff’s
correspondence, Apple broadened the App Store requirements for a COVID app from
40. Plaintiff is and was a bioinformatics development company. Plantiff’s Chief Medical
Officer was a qualified healthcare officer appropriate for such an entity. Plaintiff had
developed other large scale data and bioinformatics applications since 2014 that had
41. Despite expanding the App Store guidelines to any healthcare company, Defendant Apple
denied the appeal and permanently disallowed the app on March 26, 2020.
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42. In fact, in June 2020 Apple publicized that, in light of complaints from developers of
anti-trust behavior, they would be allowing developers to challenge the App Store rules.
Previously, Apple said developers could only challenge the factual findings of an app
review, within the rules guidelines. But in fact, Apple had allowed Plaintiff to challenge
the rules as it did in March 2020. Nonetheless, the rules change did not benefit Plaintiff,
as Apple still found an arbitrary and/or capricious interpretation of the new rules.
43. In short, Apple’s “self-policing” of antitrust developer contracts was a sham, for lack of a
better word. It had no tangible, real impact on Apple’s stronghold of the App Store and
app-store-policies-ios-bug-fixes-approval-dispute-appeal
44. Defendant Apple stated the reason for denial was that a) Plaintiff was not a recognized
healthcare entity, and b) the “user-generated data wasn’t vetted by a reputable source.”
45. In so doing, Apple was saying that citizens shouldn’t be allowed to post on a private
46. In so doing, Apple was infringing upon the right of Plaintiff, as well as ordinary citizens
and COVID patients to engage in free, unrestricted commerce and information exchange
on the internet.
47. Defendant Apple allowed at least two competing COVID apps approximately four to six
weeks after Plaintiff’s app was ready. This caused Plaintiff to lose the valuable first-
48. Apple allowed a similar British app from Guy’s St Thomas’ hospital to enter the App
Store. Although it was sponsored by an institution, the app was primarily the work-
product of several individuals, as was the Plaintiff’s app. This app quickly achieved
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millions of users a day. Had Plaintiff’s app been rightfully approved, Plaintiff’s app
would have received a significant share of the app that went to competitor apps.
49. In a second example of their arbitrary standards, Apple approved a fledgling Florida
startup’s COVID app. That startup did not have a Chief Medical Officer with the
qualifications of Plaintiff’s. That startup did not have a large-scale data computer
scientist from Dartmouth, as did Plaintiff’s, which had written apps that served hundreds
of millions users. In other words, there exists no reasonable argument that the Florida
startup app should have been permitted access to the internet, when Plaintiff’s app was
denied.
50. Allowing the aforementioned competing apps, but disallowing Plaintiff’s, was arbitrary
52. Apple and Google, combined, effectively provide internet access to the entire United
States population.
53. By disallowing Plaintiff’s app and partnering with Google to provide a COVID app that
least a month, the time during which no competing apps existed. Valuable
54. Access to the national internet backbone is theoretically possible without using Apple or
55. In practicality, many individuals, especially elderly and children, only learn how to
access the internet using a friend or relative’s Apple device. Additionally, GPS location
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data does not typically exist on a generic web browser. As such, economically efficient
Google’s.
56. As such, Apple is a de facto monopoly of access to the national internet backbone.
57. There exists tens of millions of individuals in the United States who do not know how to
58. These individuals rely upon access to the internet to perform critical commerce activity,
engage in protected free speech, and obtain lifesaving medical advice and treatments.
59. A third-party developer such as Plaintiff, seeking to help facilitate those above
60. There was no reasonable grounds for Apple to deny the Coronavirus Reporter app for
public distribution.
61. Apple has an App Review Board that decides which apps it will permit on the App Store.
62. The App Review Board has denied substantial numbers of legitimate, reasonable
Plaintiff, the app team individuals, have personally witnessed the inappropriate rejection
of four apps representing eight man-years, and asserts claims herein for all illegally
restrained app work. The exact number of man-years illegally wasted by Apple, possibly
63. When the App Review Board denies an app, they assign this to a junior staff member
who must make the unpleasant call to a developer team to inform them that their team’s
work of months or years is being denied access to the global internet backbone.
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64. These are often unpleasant and difficult conversations that understandably cause distress
for both parties. Upon information and belief, Apple’s junior App Review Board
employees (who are only known to the developers by first names such as “Erica,” “Sara,”
“Lizzy,” and so on) suffer considerable psychological distress from spending much of
their day repeatedly shooting down the dreams, and years of work, of eager and often
65. In short, Apple has junior App Store employees do their “dirty work” of unreasonably
disallowing perfectly legal and legitimate apps that meet all standards and requirements.
66. The apps are, in fact, disallowed to foster Apple’s monopolistic goals, rather than to
protect the public from low-quality or illegal applications. Upon information and belief,
Apple routinely employs cronyism when it allows one developer’s app, but disallows
similar apps from other developers. This is particularly evident and distressing to the
aforementioned junior App Reviewers, who are aware they are misleading and/or lying to
67. This well-known issue is one reason Apple is aware that antitrust laws will, at some
68. On February 22, 2021, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook notified Apple Shareholders that antitrust
language: “The Audit Committee and Board regularly review and discuss with
for the development, review, and execution of Apple’s Antitrust Compliance Program
and regularly reports to the Audit Committee. These reports cover, among other matters,
the alignment of the program with Apple’s potential antitrust risks, and the effectiveness
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of the program’s design in detecting and preventing antitrust issues and promoting
69. Discovery will demonstrate that Apple is aware of numerous instances, such as
Coronavirus Reporter, where they violated antitrust law by disallowing reasonable use of
70. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a non-profit that endeavors to maintain free
computing practices. The EFF has long been concerned that Big Tech would someday
prevent important internet applications from being realized. Historically, most internet
applications were free and open-sourced, under the MIT/GNU software licensing
paradigm. In the past decade, Defendant Apple has drastically changed the free, open
71. Plaintiff submits that Apple’s aforementioned disallowance of a renowned Physician and
Apple stepping well over the line into full antitrust violation.
72. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff and its attorney have been made aware of no less
than half a dozen similar arbitrary app rejections. App developers who recognize this
pattern of antitrust behavior have been noticed to contact Plaintiff’s attorney for inclusion
as a class action.
V. CAUSES OF ACTION
COUNT I
Sherman Act Section 2
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73. Plaintiff repeats and re-alleges each and every allegation contained herein as if fully
74. Apple’s conduct violates Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “monopolization
of any part of the trade of commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations. 15
U.S.C. Section 2
75. The iOS App Store is an antitrust market as defined under antitrust precedent.
76. Apple unlawfully maintains its monopoly power in the iOS App Store through its
77. Apple serves as a de facto on-ramp to the national internet backbone, and their
anticompetitive behavior prevents taxpayers from accessing the internet via apps such as
Coronavirus Reporter.
78. Apple has some reasonable right to quality control and law enforcement via its App
Store.
79. Disallowing a former NASA Chief Physician from offering a COVID bioinformatics app
is not a reasonable right Apple has. In fact, time has shown that Apple’s contact-tracing
app was largely a failure, and the country and taxpayers would have benefitted from
increased competition among apps, such as Coronavirus Reporter. There existed no valid
reason for Apple to block the Plaintiff’s medical application from the public. Apple did
not have “superior expertise” or ability to “foretell COVID” even though it acted like it
did.
80. Not only does Apple prevent developers from selling their product to Apple customers
through the App Store they control; Apple in conjunction with Google produced their
own contact-tracing software shortly after Coronavirus Reporter was disallowed. The
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control of a marketplace where Apple even competes calls for increast scrutiny to this
81. The public and the taxpayer would have benefitted from the contributions of a NASA
physician and a Dartmouth computer scientist trying to assist in the early days of
COVID.
82. As the creator of an app with temporarily limited commercial liability, Coronavirus
Reporter was harmed by Apple’s anti-competitive conduct in a manner that the antitrust
83. Apple disallows applications in an arbitrary and capricious manner to benefit their own
COUNT II
Sherman Act Section 1
84. Plaintiff repeats and re-alleges each and every allegation contained herein as if fully
85. Apple’s conduct violates Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “[e]very
86. The Apple Developer Agreement and the terms of the App Store Review Guidelines
87. Apple’s conduct and unlawful contractual restraints affects a substantial proportion of the
88. Apple’s conduct and ability to arbitrarily determine which applications will or will not be
published has substantial anti-competitive effects, including here the full destruction of
Plaintiff’s work-product.
89. Under Apple’s forced contracts and policies, countless independent developers have been
90. The restraint in this case is even more severe than it may appear on face value because
this application is only useful if it achieves a critical mass of users. Apple’s disallowment
prevented Coronavirus Reporter from realizing its full potential on any available
marketplace. In other words, non-Apple users would have a product with reduced
91. Apple’s conduct caused Plaintiff substantial injury. Competitor apps that were allowed in
March 2020 obtained millions of downloads and a top rank in the App Store,
demonstrating the strong demand for COVID information applications at that time.
92. Evidence is irrefutable that Apple green-lit an almost identical app, Zoe created by Guy
93. Ironically, after all of these years Apple forgot it was founded in the garage of two
independent inventors, the legendary American entrepreneurs Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak. There was no good reason, decades later, for Apple to mandate that only
institutions may contribute to the COVID emergency. This defies Apple’s own means of
creation. The public can choose which app authors they wish to use, and it is more than
evident that Plaintiff’s app, at a time when no other COVID apps existed, would have
been downloaded by millions. Here, Apple unlawfully put its thumb on the scales,
destroying any chance that Coronavirus Reporter had to participate in the open and free
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information exchange afforded by the internet. To prevent these harms, this Honorable
A. Order damages in excess of $75,000 under the jurisdictional authority of this Court;
B. Issue a permanent injunction under the Sherman Act restraining Defendant’s App Store