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It is a shame that the FTC was not this proactive when Google and Facebook were buying up every company in sight that might have turned into competition for the
by Dig1t 3y ago
It is a shame that the FTC was not this proactive when Google and Facebook were buying up every company in sight that might have turned into competition for them. Does this represent progress for the FTC? Or does Microsoft get extra scrutiny because of its history with anticompetitive practices?
- stackskipton 3y agoSince Carter/Reagan, FTC has historically not challenged these mergers because FTC and other legal agencies got swallowed up by Robert Bork who basically convinced them that monopolies are actually good. So FTC and other agencies basically listened to paid off economists who were like "This merger will be fine for consumers" https://www.promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathered-the-new-gilded-age/ https://www.promarket.org/2019/09/05/how-robert-bork-fathere... Lina Khan has changed FTC which is why you see wave of this action but obviously anything law, it's very slow going.
- coldpie 3y ago> Does this represent progress for the FTC? Yes. The FTC has been largely dormant on antitrust issues for 40 years. That changed for the first time under the current administration, but it's going to take a huge lift and a lot of time to rebuild the FTC into an agency that can once again do antitrust stuff. I'm hoping they get that time to rebuild. As you noted, we desperately need to reign in these huge companies & mergers.