Department of Justice Defends Tardiness in Posting Comments on Ebook Price Fixing Settlement

Posted on July 17, 2012

The Department of Justice says that it has received more than 800 comments from consumers about the proposed settlement of the ebook price fixing lawsuit involving major book publishers.

The DOJ has been swamped with letters on the issue and has not yet made them public because employees are still sorting through them all. Gigaom reports that the DOJ says it is "working expeditiously" to make the comments available to the public by July 20, 2012. The DOJ was supposed to have all the comments posted on its website by June 25th, but that did not happen. Lawyers on behalf of Apple and the non-settling publishers have been bugging the DOJ to get those comments posted.

The settlement goes final on August 3, 2012, so the comments will be available just a couple of weeks before then if all goes well. The DOJ is a bit huffy over the matter stating that it can't see what harm has been caused by being a bit slow posting the comments. Obviously, Apple and other defendants want those comments posted in hopes they are critical of the settlement and will somehow sway the judge. That seems highly unlikely.