3 ms·

The notion of antitrust law is fundamentally flawed to begin with. What constitutes a monopoly? Is it having a large share of the marketplace? The government gr

The notion of antitrust law is fundamentally flawed to begin with. What constitutes a monopoly? Is it having a large share of the marketplace? The government grants monopolies in the form of patents so how is that different than a company serving its customers well and thus reaping the rewards of that service? And what's wrong with that? Has anyone been forced to use Google? You have options of course and you always will. I didn't support Netscape's complaint against Microsoft when that happened for the same reason I don't support any complaint against Google now-namely that the whole idea of a free market generated monopoly is absurd. This is just another case of someone wanting to advance their career who understands nothing of free market economics. I think this time though a lot more people are more supportive of Google and realize that Google improves the quality of their lives tremendously. I'll be interested to see what sort of reaction occurs if a trial ever even happens. My guess is that threats will go on for awhile and if Obama is reelected you might see something happen.

capsid 17y ago
>What constitutes a monopoly? IANAL, but I get the impression that antitrust suits are supposed to stop businesses from being anti-competitive, not from out-competing their opponents. If the issue at the heart of this case is that PageRank may be unfairly directing traffic to Google services rather than competing services, couldn't the investigators just sign an NDA and examine PageRank? [edit: formatting]
- dantheman 17y ago
  Antitrust law is fundamentally flawed and was created to fix government granted privilege in the train system. Antitrust law is ill defined and basically puts anyone who is successful at the mercy of washington. An activity can be legal at 50%, 75%, 80% market share and then boom at 81%, or any percentage, they deem you a monopoly and that activity which was formally legal is now illegal. It is unjust and and makes a mockery of the judicial system.

capsid 17y ago

>What constitutes a monopoly? IANAL, but I get the impression that antitrust suits are supposed to stop businesses from being anti-competitive, not from out-competing their opponents. If the issue at the heart of this case is that PageRank may be unfairly directing traffic to Google services rather than competing services, couldn't the investigators just sign an NDA and examine PageRank? [edit: formatting]

dantheman 17y ago
Antitrust law is fundamentally flawed and was created to fix government granted privilege in the train system. Antitrust law is ill defined and basically puts anyone who is successful at the mercy of washington. An activity can be legal at 50%, 75%, 80% market share and then boom at 81%, or any percentage, they deem you a monopoly and that activity which was formally legal is now illegal. It is unjust and and makes a mockery of the judicial system.