antitrust

Prisons Get Big Kickbacks For Phone Contracts, Prisoners' Families Pay The Price
A investigation by Prison Legal News exposes how prisons are getting fat kickbacks from telephone companies in order to land exclusive service contracts, which they then use to charge sky-high calling rates. There's usually a connection charge of $3.00 or more and it can cost upwards of $.89 a minute. That means a 15-minute collect call can end up costing $10-$17. Compare that to the $.05 or $.10 most customers pay. Because the calls are often collect, it's the prisoners' families that end up paying the price. More »

Lawsuit Accuses Apple, Google, Others Of Employee Pay Conspiracy
Could it be that tech heavyweights including Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Adobe, Pixar and Lucasfilm were entangled in a nefarious plot to keep employee wages down and profits up? That's the allegation brought forth by a lawsuit filed in a California Superior Court, alleging antitrust violations among the companies, as well as "no solicitation" agreements that kept companies from poaching employees. More »

Report: FTC Considering Giving Google A Good Probing
Less than a week after Google reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over its Google Buzz privacy debacle comes a report that the FTC is ready to probe the internet giant once more, this time over antitrust concerns regarding its search engine. More »

21 Airlines Fined $1.7 Billion In Price-Fixing Scheme
The Justice Department has fined 21 airlines in a massive global price-fixing scheme. British Airways, Air France-KLM and Virgin Atlantic were among the airlines indicted. Even four executives have gone to jail. What did they do? The JD charges that the airlines colluded to artificially inflate fuel surcharges for passengers industry-wide, as well as cargo surcharges. The case probably wouldn't have been broken if Luthansa and Virgin Atlantic hadn't come forward and confessed under the Justice Department's amnesty program that provides leniency for finking. In an interesting turn, the scheme was so codified that various airlines had entire committees and sub-committees devoted to managing it. More »

Comcast's Letter To The FCC About Netflix Tollgate
Here is the letter Comcast sent the FCC after eyebrows were raised when Level 3 accused the cable company of setting up a effective tollgate to collect fees when L3 tried to deliver Netflix content to Comcast customers. More »

Comcast Charges Toll For Netflix Delivery
The largest broadband backbone provider in the world says Comcast has set up a tollbooth, charging it a fee to deliver Netflix content to Comcast customers. "This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access," said Level 3 in a statement. More »

Amex Slapped With Antitrust Suit, Visa & Mastercard Settle
The Justice Department sued Amex today, saying that the restrictions it places on merchants were anti-competitive. According to the complaint, the rules "impede merchants from promoting or encouraging the use of a competing credit or charge card with lower card acceptance fees." More »

Fee For Paying With Plastic? Decision Nears
The US Justice Department is said to be close to a decision on whether credit card companies can continue to forbid merchants from charging extra to customers who use credit cards to cover the cost of the credit card processing fees (usually 1-5% of the price). More »

Supreme Court Stuffs NFL's Antitrust Protection With Goal Line Stand
The NFL is an association of 32 separate businesses rather than one giant corporation with 32 branches, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, preventing the league from getting antitrust law protections it wanted. The suit originated from hatmaker American Needle, which the NFL dissed in favor of an exclusive deal with Reebok. American Needle said it was shut out thanks to a collaboration between the teams. More »

The 3 Kinds Of American Business
According to Tom, there are three basic types of American business. If that's too many to remember, you can also organize them under them under the umbrella concept known as "screwed up."

The Three Classes of American Business [4-Block World] More »

Should Google Be Broken Apart?
The consumer group Consumer Watchdog is planning to ask the Justice Department to "launch an antitrust action against the search giant and seek remedies including a possible break up," reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The group will host a press conference in Washington, D.C. tomorrow where it will argue that there's enough evidence to warrant antitrust action from the feds. More »

FBI Raids 3 Auto Parts Suppliers In Detroit As Part Of Anti-Trust Case
While the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform was busy raking Toyota's chief executives over the coals in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Federal agents in Detroit were going all Untouchables-like at the offices of three auto parts suppliers, including one company owned in part by Toyota. More »

Speak Out Against Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger At TicketDisaster.org
Yesterday a bunch of consumer advocates and anti-trust people held a press conference on Capitol Hill and asked the Department of Justice to block the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger. If you, too, feel that this spells nothing but trouble for consumers—that a Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly would ruin competition and increase ticket prices—then check out the website TicketDisaster.org. From there, you can contact the DOJ to voice your opinion about the proposed merger, read up on reasons why the merger sucks for consumers and for the concert industry, and sign up for updates. (Thanks to JammingEcono!) More »

FTC Sues Intel For Decade Of Illegal Sales Tactics
The FTC sued microprocessor giant Intel yesterday, alleging the company had engaged in illegal sales tactics for the past 10 years, relying on backroom strongarming instead of over technical innovation to maintain market dominance. More »

Restrictive Monsanto Seed Contracts Investigated
An AP investigation examines the cofidential contracts between Monsanto, which makes 90% of the world's genetically engineered seeds, and the famers and smaller seed companies it bends to its will with extremely restrictive licensing agreements. More »

Dear God: Comcast To Consider Partnering With Ticketmaster

—>When you read about the proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger, you might have thought to yourself, "Sure, this would be a merger between the world's largest ticketing company and the largest concert promoter, but I think it could be more horrifying." Comcast apparently agrees, as they're considering getting in on the merger.  More »

Verizon Limits Handset Exclusivity To 6 Months

—>Verizon announced it will limit handset exclusivity deals to 6 months, a bow to pleas by small wireless carriers, and in advance of possible Department of Justice action on its inquiries on the one-carrier deals for the iPhone, Pre and LG Voyager. In its announcement, Verizon noted 24 rural carriers had asked it to limit these anti-competitive deals. Yes, apparently there are that many small carriers still left.  More »

Ticketmaster And Live Nation Agree To Merge

—>That booming evil laughter you heard echoing across the sky earlier today came from the board room where Live Nation and Ticketmaster agreed to an all-stock merger between their two blighted companies. Ticketmaster Chairman Barry Diller says the merger will benefit customers, who are frequently "frustrated by their ticket buying experiences." Oh! So by merging the two companies most responsible for those frustrations, we'll cancel them out! This is doubleplus good, right?  More »

Ticketmaster Is Evil And Must Die

—>Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly that steals cash from defenseless consumers. They are infinitely more evil than their hated 30% surcharge would suggest, and they must be destroyed.  More »

Congress Asks Wireless Carriers To Justify Text Message Rate Increases

The similar price increases, coming at similar times, Kohl said, "is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace."  More »