Regulators Eye Apple Anew

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have begun looking at the terms Apple Inc. set this week for media companies who want to sell their content on its popular iPad and other devices.

Their in Apple's new subscription service is at a preliminary stage, and might not develop into either a formal investigation or any action against the company. But it comes as Apple has attracted growing antitrust scrutiny in the US and Europe. A spokeswoman for the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, said that the commission was aware of the new subscription service and was "carefully monitoring the situation." The Justice Department and the FTC are both interested in examining whether Apple is running afoul of U.S. antitrust laws by funneling media companies' customers into the payment system for its iTunes store—and taking a 30% cut, the people familiar with the situation said. The agencies both enforce federal antitrust laws and would have to decide which one of them would take the lead in the matter.