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I'm not a lawyer and I've disagreed with some antitrust efforts in the past, but I don't think Amazon is even close to what could reasonably be considered monop
by Noctem 12y ago
I'm not a lawyer and I've disagreed with some antitrust efforts in the past, but I don't think Amazon is even close to what could reasonably be considered monopolistic in the book industry. Amazon is huge, but it has many competitors of varying sizes on and offline.
The DOJ went after Apple over ebooks, but the reasoning for that was sort of the opposite of this situation. Apple was colluding with publishers to keep prices high, thus (arguably) exerting excessive market influence through their combined weight. This is a dispute between Amazon and a publisher, which is (somewhat arguably) exactly what should happen in the marketplace. When the supply chain colludes, their power increases. When they contend, their individual powers are kept in check.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> The DOJ went after Apple over ebooks, but the reasoning for that was sort of the opposite of this situation. Both collusion between players in a market (the publishers in the Apple case, Apple's role was as a deliberate collaborator in that illegal collusion) and unilateral action by one player with market power are prohibited by antitrust rules. So, yes, while they are in a sense "opposite", both collusion of the Apple/Publishers sort and unilateral action by a dominant player (as in, e.g., the big Microsoft antitrust case, and arguable Amazon in this case) can violate antitrust law.