>Its been 127 years since the Sherman anti-trust act was passed. Its probably time for a serious re-think. I don't know much about anti-trust law specifically,

>Its been 127 years since the Sherman anti-trust act was passed. Its probably time for a serious re-think. I don't know much about anti-trust law specifically, but I agree that as it pertains to technology, we need to seriously re-evaluate the way the law is applied and revise some of the imperfect analogies that have been used as guidelines in tech-related court cases. Due to misapplied and woefully outdated IP and computer access laws, tech companies have protections that meatspace companies can only dream about. Walmart would LOVE to be able to tell people associated with Target that entering their store was a felony, and that they weren't allowed to duplicate their latest seasonal display. I'm sure they would also love to be able to put anyone who walks out of their store with a cart full of groceries under strict contracts forbidding the use of the public courts of law and mandating any dispute be settled in binding arbitration. Walmart doesn't get to use these types of protections (because they're ridiculous), but companies that exist in cyberspace do. They're unfair to everyone except the massive companies that are already entrenched players. Tech entrepreneurs would have a much easier time competing against the mostly-illusory "network effects" of cyberspace if there wasn't someone waiting on the edge with a sledgehammer to destroy your company via legal fees and/or handcuffs to literally put you in jail, as happened to Aaron Swartz. Tech companies also have totally unparalleled access to private data about their users, extracted just by utilizing them. Parcel carriers including the USPS aren't allowed to open your mail, scan it, and store the contents in a database associated with your name -- but Google is. Ironic that we were worried about someone reading our mail before the technology to collate more than a tiny portion was available, but now that every communication we've had over the last decade can be neatly arranged and instantly analyzed from anywhere in the world, we don't seem to mind at all. Tech law has gotten by under the radar for a long time. We need to rein it in.