The goal of these laws is to provide an equal playing field for similar businesses that operate in a specific industry while preventing them from gaining too much power over their competition. Simply put, they stop businesses from playing dirty in order to make a profit. These are called antitrust laws. The three major Federal antitrust laws are The Sherman Antitrust Act. The Clayton Act. The Federal Trade Commission Act.
European Union regulators brought antitrust charges against Amazon on 11/10/2020, saying the online retail giant broke competition laws by unfairly using its size and access to data to harm smaller merchants that rely on the company to reach customers.
The Justice Department on 10/20/2020 charged Google with stifling competition and harming consumers in online search and advertising in violation of antitrust laws. Google would pay Samsung and Apple millions to make Google Search the default engine on their phones and PCs. This payment arrangement blocked competitors from offering their search engine due to the cost to compete. Although Google was charged in 2020, the trial began on 9/12/2023. It is the most significant legal offensive since the landmark case against Microsoft nearly two decades ago.
The Federal Trade Commission sued Facebook on 12/9/2020, alleging that the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.
Also,
U.S. and States Say Facebook Illegally Crushed Competition
Regulators are accusing the company of buying up rising rivals to cement its dominance over social media; namely Instagm and the What’s Up app.
The antitrust laws proscribe unlawful mergers and business practices in general terms, leaving courts to decide which ones are illegal based on the facts of each case. Courts have applied the antitrust laws to changing markets, from a time of horse and buggies to the present digital age. Yet for over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.
Congress passed the first antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890 as a “comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade.” In 1914, Congress passed two additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act, which created the FTC, and the Clayton Act. With some revisions, these are the three core federal antitrust laws still in effect today.
The Sherman Act outlaws “every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade,” and any “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize.” Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are “per se” violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.
The Federal Trade Commission Act bans “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” The Supreme Court has said that all violations of the Sherman Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, although the FTC does not technically enforce the Sherman Act, it can bring cases under the FTC Act against the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Act. The FTC Act also reaches other practices that harm competition, but that may not fit neatly into categories of conduct formally prohibited by the Sherman Act. Only the FTC brings cases under the FTC Act.
The Clayton Act addresses specific practices that the Sherman Act does not clearly prohibit, such as mergers and interlocking directorates (that is, the same person making business decisions for competing companies). Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions where the effect “may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.” As amended by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, the Clayton Act also bans certain discriminatory prices, services, and allowances in dealings between merchants. The Clayton Act was amended again in 1976 by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act to require companies planning large mergers or acquisitions to notify the government of their plans in advance. The Clayton Act also authorizes private parties to sue for triple damages when they have been harmed by conduct that violates either the Sherman or Clayton Act and to obtain a court order prohibiting the anticompetitive practice in the future.
“Big Tech” such as Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook limits competition and destroy democratic values. Big Tech companies infringe on small competitors’ patents today because they’ll control the market by the time they have to pay up tomorrow.
Due to their business practices, they eliminate rivalries through purchase and dissatisfy the public’s needs. For example, diapers.com purpose was to sell diapers at an affordable price. Amazon pursues the company and purchases it. It rids the purpose of diapers.com by selling its merchandise at a regular price.
Facebook pressured Instagram to sell because it is popular and a competitor of Facebook. Also, Facebook’s execs agreed that copying from other apps was a viable business strategy, to prevent competitors from getting footholds.
Google, for example, has built a 90% market share in the online search market and a 41% global market share in online advertising; but it has faced scrutiny from the Department of Justice, which has signaled it expects to present a case before the end of the summer; a group of states led by Texas is leading a separate probe into whether the search leader stifles competition.
2d 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2013), was a US antitrust case in which the Court held that Apple Inc. conspired to raise the price of e-books in violation of the Sherman Act. … and five book publishing companies conspired to raise and fix the price for e-books in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Once these tech giants drive competitors who can’t match their prices out of business, “prices are sure to go up.” Strengthen anti-trust laws.