Leveraging your monopoly in one market to constrain business in another market is.
Microsoft wasn't prosecuted because Windows was a monopoly, Microsoft was prosecuted because it leveraged that monopoly to block out other competitors (you could not buy a PC without a Windows license, even if you wanted to put another O/S on it).
IBM wasn't investigated because it dominated mainframes, but because it leveraged that domination to control other markets.
AT&T wasn't prosecuted for antitrust because of its monopoly on phone service in the US…the US government had effectively granted AT&T that monopoly in the first place. It was prosecuted and broken up because it leveraged that monopoly to box out competitors across multiple markets that intersected with the telephone system.
Google’s weak spots are not their monopolies in search nor ads. It’s having leveraged those monopolies in the browser and mobile phone markets. If I had to guess, they will offer to separate ad spots on search results into a separate market place, offer to spin off Chrome and Android to foundations funded initially by Google but expected to stand on their own (ala Mozilla/Firefox) after some time period, offer to separate ad placement from ad serving, and generally rearrange the chairs and org chart with a series of consent decrees requiring regular reporting to Congress or the DOJ.
Late reply, but I understand that monopolies aren't per se illegal. I said that the companies listed need to be broken up, not that they fall into the category of "monopoly that's technically not illegal and not leveraging its monopoly to constrain business in another market." There's an awful lot of projection there and I'm not sure how that ended up being the takeaway from what I said.
> Microsoft wasn't prosecuted because Windows was a monopoly, Microsoft was prosecuted because it leveraged that monopoly to block out other competitors (you could not buy a PC without a Windows license, even if you wanted to put another O/S on it).
That's what the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit should have been primarily about. The central issue in the lawsuit was including IE with Windows. Now 20 years later, the idea that they shouldn't include a web browser with their OS just seems silly.
Settlements and consent decrees are not the worst thing in the world. IBM was never prosecuted but the fear induced by the 1970s antitrust investigation likely caused the series of missteps IBM made in the 1980s that allowed the personal computer industry to bloom (if there was no antitrust investigation, IBM would likely have written an operating system for PCs in–house, not call on Gary Kildall or Bill Gates).
Big question mark in my mind is if there’s hard evidence that Google employees required customers of one service (say, Cloud) to utilize another Google service (ads, G Suite/Workplace, etc.) in order to get a discount or some other preference. That's a slam dunk. My suspicion is that there'll be a lot of activities that hew extremely closely to that line without crossing it.
Leveraging your monopoly in one market to constrain business in another market is.
Microsoft wasn't prosecuted because Windows was a monopoly, Microsoft was prosecuted because it leveraged that monopoly to block out other competitors (you could not buy a PC without a Windows license, even if you wanted to put another O/S on it).
IBM wasn't investigated because it dominated mainframes, but because it leveraged that domination to control other markets.
AT&T wasn't prosecuted for antitrust because of its monopoly on phone service in the US…the US government had effectively granted AT&T that monopoly in the first place. It was prosecuted and broken up because it leveraged that monopoly to box out competitors across multiple markets that intersected with the telephone system.
Google’s weak spots are not their monopolies in search nor ads. It’s having leveraged those monopolies in the browser and mobile phone markets. If I had to guess, they will offer to separate ad spots on search results into a separate market place, offer to spin off Chrome and Android to foundations funded initially by Google but expected to stand on their own (ala Mozilla/Firefox) after some time period, offer to separate ad placement from ad serving, and generally rearrange the chairs and org chart with a series of consent decrees requiring regular reporting to Congress or the DOJ.