Ends, Means, and Antitrust

Re:Ends, Means, and Antitrust by fixermark on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @01:59PM (#14656536)

Yes, but you'll note that those arguments did not ultimately hold water on appeal, Microsoft was never broken up, and the case was eventually settled.

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Re:Ends, Means, and Antitrust by crdoconnor on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @05:16PM (#14658517)

That's not what happened at all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...

Microsoft not being broken up wasn't about them not being guilty. It was about prosecution (under the new GWB administration) seeking a lesser penalty.

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Re:Ends, Means, and Antitrust by fixermark on Thursday June 29, 2017 @02:04PM (#14665477)

Actually, it was about courts deciding the liability scope was too wide and could harm innovation, as per your linked source.

"Although the D.C. Circuit found that it was possible to examine high-tech industries with traditional antitrust analysis, the court announced a new and permissive liability rule that repudiated the Supreme Court’s dominant rule of per se illegality for tie-ins, due to the court’s concern for the dynamic effects that a per se rule would have on innovation."

Ergo, the tie-ins were found to have happened by point of fact but not found to be illegal by re-interpretation by the courts of the illegality of tie-ins. The Justice Department then reached a settlement (the win on their side being that they wouldn't have wasted the years of prosecution).

This goes a way towards explaining why there hasn't been a similar Microsoft-scale antitrust case since the Microsoft case in the US.

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