Blog posts with "anti-trust"

As reported in this PBS NewsHour video by anchor Judy Woodruff: Five major institutions pled guilty to rigging currencies and manipulating the foreign exchange market. The banks also agreed to pay more than $5 billion combined in new penalties. The fines were some of the biggest brought to date by the federal government. The banks were accused of manipulating the world’s largest and least regulated trading market, where trillions of dollars change hands. Among those pleading guilty, J.P. M...

In the headlines is the news that Cisco may be acquiring Skype. Mind you, this is a rumor from one of TechCrunch's "more reliable sources," so it is hard to say how much truth is actually in it. According to the post, this pre-IPO acquisition of Skype would be for somewhere in the ballpark of $5 billion.   Though not a new rumor, Google had supposedly also jockeyed for this position. Skype would be a natural fit for Google's gradual expansion into the voice market, alongside its Gchat, GTalk...

  In an order published this morning, available by clicking on the title of this post or the link posted at the end, the D.C. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacked the power to mandate Comcast's network management practices, including the FCC's prohibition against Comcast's throttling of BitTorent traffic. The thirty-six page opinion was authored by Judge David S. Tatel who was joined by Judge A. Raymond Randolph and Chief Judge David B...

Amid all of the other issues Google has been facing lately (security intrusions, buzz complaints, censorship concerns, and the Italian criminal conviction), yet another has surfaced. European antitrust regulators are responding to complaints made by Google's European search rivals. They claim that Google's algorithms are downgrading their internet importance. Google fired back on its blog that it returns more relevant results than competitors, and, in effect, that is why they are mad and tryi...

The FCC has posted its anticipated proposal for Net Neutrality rules, and seeks comment on the proposal. According to the FCC press release:   "Under the draft proposed rules, subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service:   would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from sending or receiving the lawful content of the user’s choice over the Internet; would not be allowed to prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or ...

  The word on the street is that the FCC is about to release notice of proposed rules to enforce net neutrality. Keep your eyes peeled!     http://www.fcc.gov/  

This past Friday, August 21, Apple, Google, and AT&T all responded to the FCC's interrogatories that I wrote about here.   Apparently, according to Apple, the Google Voice application was never actually rejected, but was still under consideration. Apple claims that Google Voice replaces Apple's visual voice mail system, its ability to text, and its address book and was initially not added for this reason. Here, in Apple's own words, "It appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user e...

  The soon to be world's largest brewing company, InBev (brewer of beers such as Bass, Stella, Labatt, and Becks), was ordered today to divest of its assets in Labatt Beers. The issue stems from InBev's merger with Anheuser-Busch that began on July 13, 2008. At the time, Anheuser-Busch was the largest American brewer capturing 50% of the U.S. market, and InBev was the largest European and South American brewer making it the world's second largest brewer. On November 14, 2008 the Department o...

An interesting issue has developed in the law of cell phone handsets, and more generally the anti-competitive practices of large national wireless carriers. The issue stems from Apple's refusal to host a Google application in the iPhone App Store. The refusal to host the Google Voice app has not only irritated iPhone users, like myself, but has attracted the attention of the FCC.   Google Voice is a unique and useful currently web-based program in development for individuals and small busine...