>I'm quite sure it does from an anti-trust perspective. You are incorrect. mistakes, or incompetence, or lack of intent do not excuse behavior that results in

>I'm quite sure it does from an anti-trust perspective. You are incorrect. mistakes, or incompetence, or lack of intent do not excuse behavior that results in harm to consumers or prevents competition, which is generally a significant test for a determination on this sort of thing: In the US in particular, anti-trust law requires courts to evaluate a situation on the basis of 3 benchmarks to determine if one of them is met for an anti-competitive situation: 1) The Per-Se Rule. 2) The Rule of Reason. 3) The Quick Look. Number 3 in particular makes it easy to view this situation as anti competitive because here the single most important question under this for of review is whether or not there is injury in the market. The formal test is will a person "with even a rudimentary understanding of economics could conclude that the arrangements in question have an anticompetitive effect on customers and markets" In this case, a customer cannot use their product of choice and a competitor is prevented from competing. Of course an actual court case could go a variety of different ways, but you say you're quite sure that the anti-trust perspective makes a distinction as the GP comment indicated, you are incorrect.