5 ms·

That’s it, right? That’s the game? There’s no way the DoJ doesn’t have a slam-dunk case with that one quote.

noptd 5y ago
With additional details and evidence, I'd hope so. I'm not sure how this could be seen as anything other than collusion and anti-competitive behavior.
IncRnd 5y ago
Possibly, but when Janet Reno "had the goods" on Microsoft, she suddenly settled. Mind you, that was a lengthy case with the explicit purpose of splitting up Microsoft. Then, when it was all but cinched, she suddenly reversed and settled for just about ... no concessions. All Microsoft had to do was share APIs. Even the judge in the case said that Microsoft executives had "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing." [1] This new situation may be a slam-dunk, but no dunking may actually happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Appeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > Even the judge This was Judge Jackson, who had his decision overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Also "the appeals court judges accused him of unethical conduct." A lot of grandiose things were said by people during these trials, many looking to enrich their careers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    Yes, but none of the findings of fact were overturned. The judge had been interviewed, which was the issue, not that the facts were in dispute. In the settlement, Microsoft also allowed PC manufacturers to adopt non-Microsoft software.
    - tomnipotent 5y ago
      > none of the findings of fact were overturned Absolutely they were, that's what it means that most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned, and a new judge was appointed to determine penalties. Jackson wanted to break Microsoft apart and slap them with operating restrictions.
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        > Absolutely they were, that's what it means that most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned Where is it said that, "most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned"? If you are referring to the link I posted, the actual words were, "The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft." Then, just five sentences later it says, "However, the appeals court did not overturn the findings of fact."
        tomnipotent 5y ago
        That's a technical term, because it's incredibly difficult for an Appeals court to overturn findings of fact. It would require finding the Judge clearly erroneous, and they didn't need to go through the hassle. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court-overturns-microsoft-breakup-ruling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court... "In a 125-page unanimous ruling brimming with palpable derision and frustration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit nullified all three parts of Judge Jackson's ruling in the case and removed the restrictions he placed on the company's business practices, even as it made reference to many of his conclusions."
slownews45 5y ago
I thought this was public knowledge - they compete in some areas and cooperate in others? For a long time Google was the Apple maps provider (exclusive) on Apple - they had near seamless integration there and in a variety of areas (search etc) - very much acting as one company. They competed in other areas (google photos on iphone has always been very much second class), google music has struggled vs the apple music player etc. All these monster players - they are so big that if they were fighting each other on every front it would be a huge mess. Apple both bitterly competes against Samsung (who copies plenty from iphone) while simultaneously working as a big customer to them. AWS has the same issues in many area - they will do things like cooperate in some areas with enemies (ie, they'll host Microsoft workloads and MS will facilitate) while competing in other areas (AWS vs Azure etc).
- int_19h 5y ago
  These materials make it sound like they have agreed to split the market such that any competition in areas that are vital to one of the companies involved is deliberately self-limiting. The examples they give is that Apple could potentially compete with Google for search, and that Google could push Android much more aggressively into market segments that Apple currently owns. So as consumers, we're not seeing the fruits of free market competition we're entitled to.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    The value is in owning the customer relationship in most cases for the major players. The capital scale of these solutions has gotten very to extremely high. That reduces incentives to compete in these spaces. Apple doesn't particularly care to run a search platform because they can extract much of the value of search in allowing others to serve that market (ie, microsoft or google). Ie, these become high profit plays while letting someone else do hard lifting. I'd expect however they would fight like hell if you tried to take away their relationship with their customer. Even in places they compete - not 100% sure it's worth it. They are fighting it out in maps at huge expense. You need to deliver a global map to your traveling customer base that is amazing (transit, traffic, local POI etc). This is not a small project. Then you have to monetize it. If you told me a smaller handset provider was going to launch a mapping solution - I'd tell you they are crazy! That drives cooperation especially if a solution is a high capital requirement. Even intel is probably going to cooperate with TSMC (!!!). Some of these capital efforts are kind of insane - 30 billion per year capex type stuff. How many countries have CAPEX expenditures in this scale (ie, not just on operating costs / staff salaries?). These business are larger than countries in some cases. Android / Samsung absolutely are competing (and copying) Apple in handset space. Ironically they will first denounce apple (not shipping chargers!). That's ALMOST always a guarantee that they will then copy them next cycle :)! I'm not kidding. I'd love to go back and look at everything from an all screen design (bad email machine), to dropping 3.5m jack (which I hated to see happen) to dropping chargers etc.
oldgradstudent 5y ago
The Obama DOJ had plenty of quotes in the tech wage fixing scandal a few years ago. They didn't bother to enforce it in any meaningful way. They even had quotes that showed intent and understanding of the illegality: > "Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'", the Reuters news agency quoted the court filing as saying. https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-google-settlement-idINL2N0NG1ZJ20140424 https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-google-settlement-idIN...

With additional details and evidence, I'd hope so. I'm not sure how this could be seen as anything other than collusion and anti-competitive behavior.

IncRnd 5y ago

Possibly, but when Janet Reno "had the goods" on Microsoft, she suddenly settled. Mind you, that was a lengthy case with the explicit purpose of splitting up Microsoft. Then, when it was all but cinched, she suddenly reversed and settled for just about ... no concessions. All Microsoft had to do was share APIs. Even the judge in the case said that Microsoft executives had "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing." [1] This new situation may be a slam-dunk, but no dunking may actually happen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#Appeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...

tomnipotent 5y ago
> Even the judge This was Judge Jackson, who had his decision overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Also "the appeals court judges accused him of unethical conduct." A lot of grandiose things were said by people during these trials, many looking to enrich their careers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IncRnd 5y ago
  Yes, but none of the findings of fact were overturned. The judge had been interviewed, which was the issue, not that the facts were in dispute. In the settlement, Microsoft also allowed PC manufacturers to adopt non-Microsoft software.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > none of the findings of fact were overturned Absolutely they were, that's what it means that most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned, and a new judge was appointed to determine penalties. Jackson wanted to break Microsoft apart and slap them with operating restrictions.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > Absolutely they were, that's what it means that most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned Where is it said that, "most of Judge Jackson's ruling was overturned"? If you are referring to the link I posted, the actual words were, "The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft." Then, just five sentences later it says, "However, the appeals court did not overturn the findings of fact."
      - tomnipotent 5y ago
        That's a technical term, because it's incredibly difficult for an Appeals court to overturn findings of fact. It would require finding the Judge clearly erroneous, and they didn't need to go through the hassle. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court-overturns-microsoft-breakup-ruling.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/business/us-appeals-court... "In a 125-page unanimous ruling brimming with palpable derision and frustration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit nullified all three parts of Judge Jackson's ruling in the case and removed the restrictions he placed on the company's business practices, even as it made reference to many of his conclusions."

slownews45 5y ago

I thought this was public knowledge - they compete in some areas and cooperate in others? For a long time Google was the Apple maps provider (exclusive) on Apple - they had near seamless integration there and in a variety of areas (search etc) - very much acting as one company. They competed in other areas (google photos on iphone has always been very much second class), google music has struggled vs the apple music player etc. All these monster players - they are so big that if they were fighting each other on every front it would be a huge mess. Apple both bitterly competes against Samsung (who copies plenty from iphone) while simultaneously working as a big customer to them. AWS has the same issues in many area - they will do things like cooperate in some areas with enemies (ie, they'll host Microsoft workloads and MS will facilitate) while competing in other areas (AWS vs Azure etc).

int_19h 5y ago
These materials make it sound like they have agreed to split the market such that any competition in areas that are vital to one of the companies involved is deliberately self-limiting. The examples they give is that Apple could potentially compete with Google for search, and that Google could push Android much more aggressively into market segments that Apple currently owns. So as consumers, we're not seeing the fruits of free market competition we're entitled to.
- slownews45 5y ago
  The value is in owning the customer relationship in most cases for the major players. The capital scale of these solutions has gotten very to extremely high. That reduces incentives to compete in these spaces. Apple doesn't particularly care to run a search platform because they can extract much of the value of search in allowing others to serve that market (ie, microsoft or google). Ie, these become high profit plays while letting someone else do hard lifting. I'd expect however they would fight like hell if you tried to take away their relationship with their customer. Even in places they compete - not 100% sure it's worth it. They are fighting it out in maps at huge expense. You need to deliver a global map to your traveling customer base that is amazing (transit, traffic, local POI etc). This is not a small project. Then you have to monetize it. If you told me a smaller handset provider was going to launch a mapping solution - I'd tell you they are crazy! That drives cooperation especially if a solution is a high capital requirement. Even intel is probably going to cooperate with TSMC (!!!). Some of these capital efforts are kind of insane - 30 billion per year capex type stuff. How many countries have CAPEX expenditures in this scale (ie, not just on operating costs / staff salaries?). These business are larger than countries in some cases. Android / Samsung absolutely are competing (and copying) Apple in handset space. Ironically they will first denounce apple (not shipping chargers!). That's ALMOST always a guarantee that they will then copy them next cycle :)! I'm not kidding. I'd love to go back and look at everything from an all screen design (bad email machine), to dropping 3.5m jack (which I hated to see happen) to dropping chargers etc.

oldgradstudent 5y ago

The Obama DOJ had plenty of quotes in the tech wage fixing scandal a few years ago. They didn't bother to enforce it in any meaningful way. They even had quotes that showed intent and understanding of the illegality: > "Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'", the Reuters news agency quoted the court filing as saying. https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-google-settlement-idINL2N0NG1ZJ20140424 https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-google-settlement-idIN...