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Since when has sweetening your offerings been viewed as anti-competitive? That's all "data sponsoring" is; making your product more compelling through the use o

Since when has sweetening your offerings been viewed as anti-competitive? That's all "data sponsoring" is; making your product more compelling through the use of cash. Is using money to make your product attractive now anti-trust? I flipped through Wiki for a refresher, just to make sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices

seattlegal 12y ago
It's anti-competitive to app devs, not other wireless providers. Classic "pull the ladder up behind me" behavior.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  I'm expressly talking about the app devs. It might be truly anti-competitive "ladder-up-behind-you" if all app devs were forced to sponsor client-side traffic. Think of taxi tokens- a fixed barrier to entry. But even then, to be an anti-competitive barrier to entry it must also be high. The cost of a postage stamp on your government paperwork is a barrier to entry, but it is not anti-competitive.
  - IshKebab 12y ago
    Yes on of the nice things about the internet is that there are no barriers to entry. Or at least there weren't...
  - ksk 12y ago
    To me, its similar to a supermarket only allowing already-popular brands to be on their shelves. From their POV I guess it makes sense, but if you're out there selling a new brand of peanut butter, you can either start your own supermarket, or target the mom-pop stores and hope for the best. I think this kind of stuff is highly regressive. The Internet was this place where you succeeded on your own merit and not because you pay-to-win. A place where a tiny company like Google was able to sell their service because it was on the same playing field as lycos/yahoo/altavista. If accessing Google cost you money while lycos/yahoo/altavista were free, nobody would have ever tried Google. And without enough people searching and clicking on links there will never be enough seed data for a good ranking algorithm to work.
    - sliverstorm 12y ago
      The supermarket is a good example. That's already how it is, all the time, and yet we still get incumbents. Have you seen how many different kinds of jams, jellies, and peanut butters have taken hold? Yes, it's a challenge to be the new guy on the block, but that is just the nature of the beast. Now, if Jiffy paid supermarkets not to stock other brands of peanut butter, that would probably be anti-competitive. If accessing Google cost you money while lycos/yahoo/altavista were free, nobody would have ever tried Google. We can't know for sure, but IMO this is totally not true. The cost for one search worth of traffic is tiny, and their results were superior.
      - ksk 12y ago
        >Yes, it's a challenge to be the new guy on the block, but that is just the nature of the beast. So, we already have a better system (internet), and you want to go back to a worse system? Honestly, I don't know if you're trolling me at this point.
lamacase 12y ago
I always wondered this as well. If a company was sponsoring data on a product that they don't make any money from, that looks like it could be considered anti-competitive. If a company sponsored data on search so they could fill the results with ads for their products maybe? Or if a streaming service sponsored data so they could get people to buy from their music store or something? If the data is sponsored using funds from the profits of the sponsoring service, I can't imagine how that could be construed as anti-competitive. Presumably the competition could do the same thing unless there's some sort of exclusivity deal. There is a competitive advantage to being a bigger company with more money to throw around, but does that make it anti-competitive?
MichaelGG 12y ago
If all apps had equal access to zero rating, then that'd be one thing. If I can just go to some site and pay for traffic to my site, cool. But is that reality? On top of that, I would be surprised if some carriers are not just doing it as a marketing service. In Guatemala, I see huge billboards saying you don't need to pay anything to use Facebook, Whatsapp and some others. If you have an active line (meaning you've spent a dollar in a month or two or something low), you're set to use them. Even promotion like that is somewhat anticompetitive if there's no way for other parties to let users know.

seattlegal 12y ago

It's anti-competitive to app devs, not other wireless providers. Classic "pull the ladder up behind me" behavior.

sliverstorm 12y ago
I'm expressly talking about the app devs. It might be truly anti-competitive "ladder-up-behind-you" if all app devs were forced to sponsor client-side traffic. Think of taxi tokens- a fixed barrier to entry. But even then, to be an anti-competitive barrier to entry it must also be high. The cost of a postage stamp on your government paperwork is a barrier to entry, but it is not anti-competitive.
- IshKebab 12y ago
  Yes on of the nice things about the internet is that there are no barriers to entry. Or at least there weren't...
- ksk 12y ago
  To me, its similar to a supermarket only allowing already-popular brands to be on their shelves. From their POV I guess it makes sense, but if you're out there selling a new brand of peanut butter, you can either start your own supermarket, or target the mom-pop stores and hope for the best. I think this kind of stuff is highly regressive. The Internet was this place where you succeeded on your own merit and not because you pay-to-win. A place where a tiny company like Google was able to sell their service because it was on the same playing field as lycos/yahoo/altavista. If accessing Google cost you money while lycos/yahoo/altavista were free, nobody would have ever tried Google. And without enough people searching and clicking on links there will never be enough seed data for a good ranking algorithm to work.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    The supermarket is a good example. That's already how it is, all the time, and yet we still get incumbents. Have you seen how many different kinds of jams, jellies, and peanut butters have taken hold? Yes, it's a challenge to be the new guy on the block, but that is just the nature of the beast. Now, if Jiffy paid supermarkets not to stock other brands of peanut butter, that would probably be anti-competitive. If accessing Google cost you money while lycos/yahoo/altavista were free, nobody would have ever tried Google. We can't know for sure, but IMO this is totally not true. The cost for one search worth of traffic is tiny, and their results were superior.
    - ksk 12y ago
      >Yes, it's a challenge to be the new guy on the block, but that is just the nature of the beast. So, we already have a better system (internet), and you want to go back to a worse system? Honestly, I don't know if you're trolling me at this point.

lamacase 12y ago

I always wondered this as well. If a company was sponsoring data on a product that they don't make any money from, that looks like it could be considered anti-competitive. If a company sponsored data on search so they could fill the results with ads for their products maybe? Or if a streaming service sponsored data so they could get people to buy from their music store or something? If the data is sponsored using funds from the profits of the sponsoring service, I can't imagine how that could be construed as anti-competitive. Presumably the competition could do the same thing unless there's some sort of exclusivity deal. There is a competitive advantage to being a bigger company with more money to throw around, but does that make it anti-competitive?

MichaelGG 12y ago

If all apps had equal access to zero rating, then that'd be one thing. If I can just go to some site and pay for traffic to my site, cool. But is that reality? On top of that, I would be surprised if some carriers are not just doing it as a marketing service. In Guatemala, I see huge billboards saying you don't need to pay anything to use Facebook, Whatsapp and some others. If you have an active line (meaning you've spent a dollar in a month or two or something low), you're set to use them. Even promotion like that is somewhat anticompetitive if there's no way for other parties to let users know.