Apple And Google Pressed On Sherlocking In Antitrust Hearing In The U.S. Senate

In today’s antitrust hearing in the U.S. Senate, Apple and Google representatives were questioned on whether they have a “strict firewall” or other internal policies in place that prevent them from leveraging the data from third-party businesses operating on their app stores to inform the development of their own competitive products.

Apple, in particular, was called out for the practice of copying other apps by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who said the practice had become so common that it earned a nickname with Apple’s developer community: “sherlocking.” – used in Apple dev community any time Apple copies an idea from a third-party developer that threatens to or even destroys their business.