Appeals Court Brings Back Lawsuit Over Possible Antitrust Violations Over .com Registry

from the this-could-get-interesting dept

For a long time, there have been accusations of questionable sweetheart deals by ICANN and whoever got to manage certain top level domains -- with no controversy bigger than the question of why VeriSign got to retain the .com and .net registries, and raise prices on it, without any opportunity for other providers to bid on the business (for the .com registry at least -- there was bidding on .net). There were also complaints about a secondary market for "used domains" that VeriSign was setting up. A non-profit group had sued VeriSign, saying that these were antitrust violations, but the district court had thrown out the case, saying that the group, called the Coalition for ICANN Transparency, failed to properly state its case (despite having an opportunity to amend the original filing). However, an appeals court has reversed the lower court, and will allow the lawsuit to proceed, which could mean problems for VeriSign (and potentially cheaper domain name registrations).

Filed Under: .com, antitrust, domain names, registry
Companies: icann, verisign

Is It An Antitrust Violation To Agree Not To Poach Employees From Competitors?

from the not-entirely-clear dept

The news broke this week that a bunch of big name Silicon Valley companies are under investigation by the Justice Department for their hiring practices and potential antitrust concerns. The specific issue appears to be that the companies may have agreed to not try to poach top execs from certain companies. Apparently there was nothing stopping the employee from getting a job at one of these companies, if they took the initiative -- but the companies wouldn't initiate the attempt. In most cases, the idea was not to poach from partners -- which might just be good business sense (pissing off partners generally isn't a good idea). Where it gets tricky is the accusation that some companies had written agreements not to poach, which could lead to some charges of collusion. Oddly, the NY Times article's title claims that the issue is "unwritten rules" when the details of the article suggest it's not the unwritten, but the written rules that are the problem. There have been studies that suggest that root of Silicon Valley's success was the easy movement of people from job to job -- so if it's true that companies are holding back trying to get the best employees to move around, they may actually be doing a lot more harm to themselves anyway. And, on the whole, it does seem like there's an awful lot of movement between big name companies. Just this week at the Conversational Marketing Summit, one of the speakers had a musical chairs presentation that went on for a long time showing a bunch of execs and how they played musical chairs between Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL, News Corp. and Facebook.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, hiring, silicon valley
Companies: apple, genentech, google, microsoft, yahoo

Newspapers Gather In Secret (With An Antitrust Lawyer) To Collude Over Paywalls

from the good-luck dept

You may have noticed a bunch of stories recently about how newspapers should get an antitrust exemption to allow them to collude -- working together to all put in place a paywall at the same time. That hasn't gone anywhere, so apparently the newspapers decided to just go ahead and try to get together quietly themselves without letting anyone know. But, of course, you don't get a bunch of newspaper execs together without someone either noticing or leaking the news... so it got out. And then the newspapers admitted it with a carefully worded statement about how they got together "to discuss how best to support and preserve the traditions of newsgathering that will serve the American public." And, yes, they apparently had an antitrust lawyer or two involved.

In the end, though, it won't matter. If a bunch of newspapers decide to lock up their content, they will only be digging their own graves. Smart newspaper execs will stay away and get all of the traffic. The wire services that compete with the Associated Press (such as Reuters, and CNN's new wire service) would be well served to put out a press release now hyping up the fact that their content is free. Other, smaller providers of news should trumpet how much they want people to come to them for news instead of paying, and then watch in amusement as the newspapers (whether it's an antitrust violation or not) discover both their advertising and their subscription money disappear.

Whether it's antitrust or not, it sure looks like collective suicide.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, newspapers, paywalls

RealNetworks Ups The Ante; Wants To Add Antitrust Charges Against The MPAA

from the your-move dept

With the lawsuit between the movie studios and RealNetworks off to an inauspicious start, it looks like RealNetworks decided to pull out the nuclear option: it's trying to add anti-trust charges against the movie studios to the case. The company claims it's come across evidence that the studios colluded to boycott RealNetworks and its attempt to let people back up their legally obtained movies. It would be interesting to know the details behind the evidence, as it could make the case a lot more exciting pretty quickly.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, dvds, mpaa
Companies: mpaa, realnetworks

Are Microsoft's Limitations On Netbooks Running XP Antitrust Violations?

from the not-really... dept

Michael Scott points us to someone asking how come the limitations that Microsoft puts on computer vendors who are selling netbooks with XP installed don't constitute an antitrust violation. I'm sure others may differ, but I can't quite see where the antitrust violation would be here. First, there are alternatives. Linux-based netbooks are still decently popular, so if Microsoft's limits were a real problem, then there are other ways to go. Second, I would imagine that someone could buy XP through third parties and install it on any machine they want. It's just that if they want to get a wholesale deal directly from Microsoft, the company puts certain limitations on it. So I don't see it as an antitrust issue.

That said... I have to admit that I don't understand why Microsoft puts these limitations on netbooks that run XP. My guess is that it's because they really, really, really want to move people off of XP and onto Vista (or Windows 7 eventually), and they're afraid that if they let more powerful netbooks run XP, that they'll start to become full laptop replacements -- and Microsoft's grand strategy of moving customers to the latest and greatest will stall out. However, that seems hard to support. It makes little sense to try to limit customers -- especially those who really want to buy your product. If Microsoft XP makes a computer more valuable to someone, why limit that choice?

Filed Under: antitrust, netbooks, xp
Companies: microsoft

Apparently Google's Lawyers Were Prepped For Google/Apple Antitrust Inquiry

from the just-look-at-our-website dept

With the (not particularly surprising) news coming out that the FTC was looking at the relationship between Apple and Google (specifically the ties between the Board of Directors of both companies), John Paczkowski noticed that Google's outside law firm (full disclosure: it's our outside law firm as well, though it's a big, big law firm), Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati had not only already prepared a presentation on the issue but had posted it to its website. Soon after noticing it, WSGR pulled down the presentation. So Paczkowski pointed to the Google cache of it... only to see that disappear quickly as well. Amusingly, Danny Sullivan noted that it's still available in Microsoft's cache. Either way, it seems like Google should be quite prepared for the issue, though Eric Schmidt's initial responses to questions about it don't seem very reassuring. You would think that he would have thought through a slightly more nuanced answer than saying that he hadn't even considered leaving Apple's board. Either way, it seems pretty clear that Google is going to spend an awful lot of time in the antitrust spotlight -- justified or not -- over the next few years, and the company better get used to it.

Filed Under: antitrust, ftc
Companies: apple, ftc, google, wilson sonsini

Attorney General Says He'd Adjust Antitrust Policy To Save Newspapers

from the right-answer,-wrong-question dept

Attorney General Eric Holder has now said that he's open to adjusting antitrust policy to help save newspapers. This is a bit startling, for a variety of reasons, some of which are good, and some are very bad. First, the entire point of antitrust legislation isn't about saving "industries," but about protecting consumers and the economy from harm. There are times when creative destruction is a good thing, and adjusting antitrust powers to protect an industry being destroyed would be bad. That said, I actually tend to agree that antitrust claims are invoked way too often, and usually in situations where there's really no monopolistic behavior or no real problem.

Specifically, what Holder seems to be referring to is whether or not newspapers should be able to own other media properties, such as TV or radio stations. The whole media ownership debate is silly. The rules against "media consolidation" were designed for an era when all your media came from a very small number of official sources. These days, thanks to the internet, people have significantly more media choices than they've ever had before, and more new ones seem to be springing up every single day. Worrying about media consolidation such as that is quite silly. So, if Holder is willing to dump those rules as being outdated and useless, that's great.

But that's not what he's actually saying. He's saying that he'd adjust the rules to save newspapers:

"I think it's important for this nation to maintain a healthy newspaper industry. So to the extent that we have to look at our enforcement policies and conform them to the realities that that industry faces, that's something that I'm going to be willing to do.... I think that we need to have a healthy, vibrant newspaper industry, and I don't mean just online."

Now that's a problem. He's singling out a specific product -- the newspaper -- rather than the actual benefit -- good journalism. In other words, he's saying that the government should be picking journalism winners (the newspaper over alternatives) rather than letting the market decide. To me, that's troubling. It also suggests that he could conceivably be open to even more ridiculous proposals, such as letting all of the top news properties collude. As AG, Holder shouldn't be looking to prop up specific businesses or products.

Filed Under: antitrust, eric holder, journalism, newspapers

AT&T Didn't Violate Antitrust Laws In Wholesale DSL Pricing

from the really? dept

Well, this is certainly interesting. Just as the US government seems to be hinting at the possibility of declaring Google a monopoly, the Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling on whether or not AT&T violated antitrust laws in pricing its wholesale DSL lines at a price above its retail rates (i.e., other DSL providers could resell AT&T DSL lines, but they would have to price them significantly higher than AT&T or lose money). The Supreme Court has now said that it's not an antitrust violation to have priced line sharing in this manner.

I can certainly see the arguments for both sides in this ruling. In theory, AT&T should have the right to price its offerings wherever it wants. But, that ignores that AT&T does have a monopoly in terms of government granted rights-of-way and subsidies, such that no other provider can realistically compete without similar government benefits. This isn't because AT&T grew into a monopoly, but because the government granted them those rights and subsidies. In the end, though, as much as I think we should encourage competition via line sharing, I think the Supreme Court made the right decision, in realizing that this isn't an antitrust issue, but a regulatory issue. When the gov't granted AT&T rights of way and subsidies, it could have (and probably should have) extracted certain requirements concerning line sharing. In not doing so, it implicitly allowed AT&T to price such line sharing at whatever ridiculous rates AT&T wanted. The solution isn't via an antitrust lawsuit as it is in making sure that granting such rights of way and subsidies comes with reasonable line sharing rules.

Filed Under: antitrust, line sharing, supreme court
Companies: at&t

Google, Too, Chooses Lobbying Over Competing

from the is-that-so-googley? dept

Microsoft's increasing regulatory headache from the European Commission concerns its Internet Explorer browser that comes standard with Windows. We've said before that this investigation is prima facie silly given the vibrant and increasing competition in the browser market, but it looks like things are just going to get worse for Microsoft. First, it was Mozilla deciding to complain that Microsoft was creating an unhealthy browser market by bundling IE with Windows. Now, Google is jumping onto the bandwagon and arguing that Microsoft's policy limits competition and harms innovation.

This is primarily problematic because the browser market is anything but uncompetitive. Firefox has created what is widely considered a better product, and, wouldn't you know it, gained considerable market share around the world (as high as 30% in some regions). More recently, Google introduced its own browser, Chrome, that launched to accolades and much user adoption. By introducing regulators into the browser market, these companies will all be distracted from providing users with the best possible product.

But what's even more confounding is Google's involvement. Obviously the company desires control of most browsers so it can set the defaults in its favor, but it is increasingly obvious that Google should not be bringing regulatory attention to the Internet -- especially when it comes to antitrust questions. Although claims of Google's "monopoly" are as specious as Internet Explorer's, making noise about antitrust is likely to come back and bite Google, especially given the rising number of political enemies they have.

Filed Under: antitrust, browsers, bundling, eu, internet explorer, regulators
Companies: google, microsoft

New Antitrust Boss Has Already Expressed Concerns About Google

from the so-much-for-eric-schmidt's-relationship... dept

There have been some folks in the press who have repeatedly pointed out Google CEO Eric Schmidt's close relationship with President Obama to suggest that Google should be "protected" from government regulation. However, there's little to suggest that's necessarily the case. Plenty of folks who feel strongly anti-Google have close relationships with the administration as well. And, as Bloomberg notes, Obama's nominee for antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has recently described Google as a likely antitrust problem, noting the company "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising." Of course, that's wrong on many levels (it doesn't have anything close to a monopoly in online ads), but this should at least serve as evidence that reports of Google's "control" over the administration isn't nearly as strong as some have been suggesting.

Filed Under: antitrust, christine varney, obama
Companies: google