I think that in either Finland or Iceland people receive traffic fines that are a percentage of their income. They would never fly in the US.
There are almost certainly low key levels of bad practices in small shops. But it would cost more and take more out of the economy to enforce them than it is to just not care.
Now, that bar is rising, of course. Things that used to not matter years ago are easily enforced today.
I can’t imagine how this could be abused.
Similarly, mens rea is a thing. Such that statutory enforcement of rules is often a regressive policy that isn't necessarily a good idea.
My point was that many rules get enforced on a cost benefit based system. Especially in business where enforcement is necessarily an expensive undertaking. Ideally, part of enforcement will include evolution of the rules so that people don't grow into a situation where what they are doing is suddenly illegal. That said, many of the rules we are looking at here are more along the lines of "you left interstate driving and are now in a city." That is, the landscape and situation pretty much has to factor into the rules. Is why you would be an asshole for worrying about the kid's lemonade stand down the corner. Any grandstanding on how the rules apply universally is... well, just not useful.
That is to say, I also expect clarification and evolution of the rules during this enforcement action. Such that I would be most happy to have some of these arrangement flat out illegal. That said, https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui... was linked on Matt Levine's email today. And... "Our company monitors competitors' ads, and we sometimes offer to match special discounts or sales incentives for consumers. Is this a problem?" is answered with a no. Such that, this is a tough field to litigate right now.
And, what is it you are advocating for? That we only have rules that we can universally enforce? That would require that we know all of the ways that they can be broken from the beginning, so that we can encode those in law.
Maybe the US doesn't have a lot of laws that specifically target large organizations, but they have a ton that specifically exempt small ones.
Note, there is still a valid question on whether or not companies with enough exposure should be held to higher standards. Consider, we hold pro players to tighter requirements than we do local leagues. They both have basically the same rules, of course, but not fully identical. And enforcement is, of course, largely at the discretion of the agencies enforcing them.
The last is obnoxious, if you view the entire field as a homogeneous thing. And I do get the impression that there is something more going on in this case. That said, it is not abnormal to rank ROI on what gets enforced. I wish it was framed directly in those terms, though.