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"May now have been politicized"? Anti-trust has been politicized for a long time. It just seems like it's politicized now, because it's our companies which are
by quanticle 7y ago
"May now have been politicized"? Anti-trust has been politicized for a long time. It just seems like it's politicized now, because it's our companies which are being targeted. When the Obama-era Justice Department prevented the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, that was considered to be a just and fair application of anti-trust law, but somehow when the same scrutiny is applied to Google and Facebook, that's considered "politicization".
To be clear, I'm don't disagree with the Obama Justice Department's blocking of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. Such a merger would certainly have reduced the competition in wireless markets, and would probably have led to higher prices and poorer service. But it's hard to characterize the decision to pursue telecom companies (while ignoring big tech) or the reverse (pursuing big tech while ignoring telecoms) as anything but political.
- _emacsomancer_ 7y ago> When the Obama-era Justice Department prevented the T-Mobile/Sprint merger Wasn't it the ATT/T-Mobile merger? Which is a bit different from T-Mobile/Sprint in various aspects.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ajxs 7y agoA fair person would consider that the political leverage possessed by companies like Facebook or Twitter to be an issue irrespective of what political party they supported. Surely the fact that multinational corporations such as these are able to work together with domestic political organisations to serve their own interests while being able to evade enforcement of domestic laws is an issue. The unpopularity of the Trump administration notwithstanding, they have a clear reason to want to push in this direction. I can't imagine the Democratic party being quick to act on this issue for the time being, since ostensibly the overreach of these organisations is working in their favor.