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The whole structure of antitrust regulation is, by negligence or design, weird and weak.

#1 Why does there need to be a plaintiff? A trust affects consumers and society broadly detrimentally, not some specific competitor. The competitor google is likely trying to suppress is some theoretical startup anyway, they probably don't exist to sue.

#2 Why the focus on specific damages? The specific harm of such a trust are inherently unknowable.

The Google-Apple deal isn't new, and has been widely reported on. Google pays more to apple than 2nd place (MST/YAHOO) has ever delivered in topline revenue. Apple can (a)take pure profit with no effort or risk, (b)build a competing business with much worse best-case prospects, or (c) leave room in the market for someone else to try. It's not really a choice.

Meanwhile, Google's largest investments (eg chrome, android) are just an insourced version of the Apple-Google trust. Monopolistic deals and strategies aren't a side-show, they're the primary activity of these companies.

To me, it's increasingly obvious that monopoly issues are structural. It's not what Google/Apple do, it's what they are. Dealing with antitrust in an infraction->lawsuit manner, post facto, is a designed to fail structure.

IMO there are two choices, besides just accepting the prevalence of monopolies, cartels & trusts. (1) They can be broken up. (2) They can become "regulated monopolies," with a regulatory structure designed to prevent monopolistic harms before they happen. Yes, it will harm their profitability.




> Why does there need to be a plaintiff?

There doesn't need to be an independent plaintiff. The DoJ can bring an antitrust suit directly, and often does. For example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....


The questions you are asking are fundamental to the legal system - they are not specific to antitrust laws.

All cases must have standing (a damaged party) and must demonstrate damage.

This is first year law stuff. Without these requirements, anyone could sue anyone for all sorts of made up baloney - and the suits themselves would be the punitive.


I don't want to speak for anyone, but I think the idea is more akin to conspiracy to commit murder or something. Maybe driving while intoxicated?

The target of the murder shouldn't have to be murdered for there to be some grounds for a lawsuit. Similarly, you might arrest someone for driving while intoxicated even though they haven't done any actual damage to person or property.

Along these lines, I think the idea is that someone shouldn't have to show specific demonstrable harms that have already occurred in cases of antitrust.

It's a gray area but it seems like with some things, harm should be implied or something to be avoided?


Go ahead. I could use a lawyer.


IIRC only civil cases need a plaintiff with standing. If our antitrust laws were criminal laws, this wouldn't be a problem.


Who says antitrust was primarily a legal matter?


Because so far, no-one (within the US legal system) has come up with a formulation for "monopoly" and "market" that does not have (a) unpleasant side effects for businesses that would normally not be considered monopolists (b) a system that is easily gamed by businesses that are trying to monopolise a market.

Not saying it can't be done, just that it seems to be fairly hard.


the "market" seems to be betting that these monopolies will persist more or less exactly as they are (see eg the 3 trillion apple valuation that is really an unfathomable number unless you condition that basically the entire US economy will be co-controlled by those entities)

so it seems to me that disastrously bad regulation has created self-sustaining monsters. which market worshiping politician would dare burst that multi trn-bubble?


Good question.

Reminds me of the "housing affordability" question. If politicians had a magic wand that turns a city with $1m median house prices into a $250k one...


An easy way around that is upzoning. Then a house that's worth $1m could be turned into 4 houses worth 500k each.

That way homeowners make more money and housing becomes cheaper at the same time.

Depending on the context of course..


there are no choices besides accepting the prevalence of monopolies, governments should not be restricting two of the greatest businesses in history.




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