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The companies are free to stop cold-calling people entirely of their own volition. That isn't what happened here. A subset of companies agreed among themselves

The companies are free to stop cold-calling people entirely of their own volition. That isn't what happened here. A subset of companies agreed among themselves to not cold call eachother's employees. This is a conspiracy in restraint of trade that helps these companies at the expense of employees and other companies not involved in the conspiracy. They are specifically agreeing amongst themselves to not target certain people in violation of normal competitive practices in the relevant market, while continuing the practices with regard to others outside the conspiracy. Much of the time, the distinction between a lawful practice and an unlawful practice is whether two or more companies got together and agreed to engage in the practice. The distinction is important, because independent adoption of a practice by multiple entities is a sign that they are responding to market forces, while collusive adoption of a practice is a sign that they are attempting to distort market forces. This was unambiguously an attempt to distort market forces.

EGreg 13y ago
I am saying that the basis for law itself seems to not be invoked here. The government is the one distorting market forces, what you are describing is emergent behavior which comes out of market forces - companies agree to all sorts of arrangements including buying selling, exclusive service contracts and more. The govt has a rationale for this. The rationale is that most people will benefit from companies competing. I am saying that it hasnt been shown that most people will benefit from companies excessively disrupting each other's teams. The workers are still able to find jobs by SIMPLY BROWSING A MARKETPLACE. We are talking about agreements not to advertise the offers in certain places. The government restricts advertising all the time - for example in south american cities advertising in public places is now illegal. Is that distorting market forces? Well it sets the rules for the market. Here the rule is that companies cannot agree not to cold call each other's employees. I call bullshit on that benefiting anyone but a small group of employees. The teams suffer and the companies suffer and they pass on the cost to everyone.

EGreg 13y ago

I am saying that the basis for law itself seems to not be invoked here. The government is the one distorting market forces, what you are describing is emergent behavior which comes out of market forces - companies agree to all sorts of arrangements including buying selling, exclusive service contracts and more. The govt has a rationale for this. The rationale is that most people will benefit from companies competing. I am saying that it hasnt been shown that most people will benefit from companies excessively disrupting each other's teams. The workers are still able to find jobs by SIMPLY BROWSING A MARKETPLACE. We are talking about agreements not to advertise the offers in certain places. The government restricts advertising all the time - for example in south american cities advertising in public places is now illegal. Is that distorting market forces? Well it sets the rules for the market. Here the rule is that companies cannot agree not to cold call each other's employees. I call bullshit on that benefiting anyone but a small group of employees. The teams suffer and the companies suffer and they pass on the cost to everyone.