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Questions from someone who doesn't know a lot about antitrust law, in case someone knowledgeable cares to chime in: To what extent does antitrust law require s

Questions from someone who doesn't know a lot about antitrust law, in case someone knowledgeable cares to chime in: To what extent does antitrust law require specific intentional or knowing conduct? Is there some "knew or should have known" standard that would require Google to explain why they didn't anticipate or investigate some suspiciously favorable placement of Google products/services/affiliates? Or can Google basically shrug and say "algorithm" a lot and the Justice Department would have an uphill battle to prove intent?

KirinDave 7y ago
It requires no intent, and iirc the argument of Standard Oil before their censure was precisely that they didn't mean to stifle trade, they were just better than everyone else at it. The Supreme Court said they didn't really care why or how, they cared that it was a monopoly in fact. But historically anti-trust suits have usually been about what happens when negative sentiment towards American mega-corporations grows too high. Essentially the rules are different for big companies. In reality, most of the things companies need to do to avoid anti-trust cases are performative. Even more ironically, the super rich at the tops of corporate pyramids often end up profiting from these sorts of actions. All an anti-trust suit can do is mandate companies fracture into multiple legal entities. Usually the same owners retain their ownership, only now over dozens or more of companies which each individually pay upwards. What's even more distressing about these laws is that they're quite unusable against entities that are at least as frightening, like Amazon (and historically Walmart). Amazon is the omni-company, and now they're gonna get into consumer telecom too. And because they're lateral as opposed to vertical and they choked out the competition during a recession, they don't even have to pretend the're offering a square deal to their resellers.
- threezero 7y ago
  Amazon could very well be the next target. Their practice of driving out smaller resellers in a category and then jacking up prices could be looked at as an antitrust issue.
asr 7y ago
Monopolization requires anticompetitive conduct. To prove this, intent evidence is often helpful. For example, in the recent Qualcomm case the judge cited evidence that Qualcomm executives knew their business model created antitrust risk. But intent evidence is not required. A corporation doesn't have a state of mind. Also, wanting to beat your competitors is fine (and good). So it's tricky to distinguish bad intent from good intent.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
This is civil law. It's not about any sort of moral failings, and therefore intent is rather unimportant.

KirinDave 7y ago

It requires no intent, and iirc the argument of Standard Oil before their censure was precisely that they didn't mean to stifle trade, they were just better than everyone else at it. The Supreme Court said they didn't really care why or how, they cared that it was a monopoly in fact. But historically anti-trust suits have usually been about what happens when negative sentiment towards American mega-corporations grows too high. Essentially the rules are different for big companies. In reality, most of the things companies need to do to avoid anti-trust cases are performative. Even more ironically, the super rich at the tops of corporate pyramids often end up profiting from these sorts of actions. All an anti-trust suit can do is mandate companies fracture into multiple legal entities. Usually the same owners retain their ownership, only now over dozens or more of companies which each individually pay upwards. What's even more distressing about these laws is that they're quite unusable against entities that are at least as frightening, like Amazon (and historically Walmart). Amazon is the omni-company, and now they're gonna get into consumer telecom too. And because they're lateral as opposed to vertical and they choked out the competition during a recession, they don't even have to pretend the're offering a square deal to their resellers.

threezero 7y ago
Amazon could very well be the next target. Their practice of driving out smaller resellers in a category and then jacking up prices could be looked at as an antitrust issue.

asr 7y ago

Monopolization requires anticompetitive conduct. To prove this, intent evidence is often helpful. For example, in the recent Qualcomm case the judge cited evidence that Qualcomm executives knew their business model created antitrust risk. But intent evidence is not required. A corporation doesn't have a state of mind. Also, wanting to beat your competitors is fine (and good). So it's tricky to distinguish bad intent from good intent.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

This is civil law. It's not about any sort of moral failings, and therefore intent is rather unimportant.