The DOJ is reportedly drafting a lawsuit to block Google’s $700 million bid for ITA Software. This is good news for the FairSearch.org group, which wants the deal nixed. – @font-face {
font-family: "Times";
}@font-face {
font-family: "Cambria";
}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal div.Section1
Google’s $700
million acquisition of ITA Software may be halted by the U.S. Justice
Department, which is reportedly preparing for a possible antitrust lawsuit to
…
Indonesia’s anti-trust agency (KPPU) is seeking ways to seize assets worth 120 billion rupiah ($17.1 million) from Singapore’s Temasek Holdings (TEM.UL) over an outstanding fine of the same amount, a KPPU commissioner said on Tuesday.
The KPPU ruled in 2007 that Temasek and eight affiliates were in breach of Indonesia’s anti-monopoly laws because of holdings in two Indonesian telecom firms, and ordered Singapore’s state investor to sell the stake in one while fining the affiliates 15 billion rupiah each.
Europe’s antitrust watchdog took up two cases accusing Google of favoring its own search and Web services over that of German publishers and an online mapping company. – The European Commission has tacked on two German cases to its antitrust
investigation into whether or not Google is unfairly promoting its own Web
services in its search results on Google.com.
The New York Times said
the Commission has taken up complaints from a conglomerate of 450 newspaper an…
News Analysis: Google is facing an EU antitrust probe over its dominant position in the search and advertising markets. Now Google will have to learn a thing or two from Microsofts EU experience. – The European Union has launched an investigation into Google over concerns that the company might have used its dominant position in the search market to benefit its own operation and hurt its competition.
Some of the companys competitors, including Microsoft, say that Google is modifying…
It’s hard to find folks who believe the European Commission will successfully hammer Google for pumping up its search results over those of smaller rivals. – Legal experts, search gurus and financial analysts don’t believe Google
should sweat the European Commission’s formal investigation into it allegedly
boosting its search results over smaller rivals.
That’s because Europe’s antitrust watchdog is saddled with the burden of
proving that Google fidd…
The European Union is investigating claims from smaller search engines that Google has violated fair competition rules by boosting its results. Google denies the claims. – The European Union’s inquiry into Google’s search practices has evolved into a full-blown investigation as the agency’s antitrust watchdog pledged to take a hard look at the search engine.
Foundem, eJustice and Microsoft’s Ciao filed complaints last February with the EU, alleging that Google surfac…
The FTC has modified the agreement it reached with Intel that settled antitrust complaints against the chip maker. The modification removes an interface requirement from Intel’s "Oak Trail" Atom platform. –
Intel’s legal dispute with the Federal Trade Commission
appears to be wrapping up, after the agency announced Nov. 2 that it had
modified the initial agreement reached with the giant chip maker in August to
settle antitrust allegations.
According to the FTC, the agreement was amended to allow
…
Google said Sept. 3 that the Texas Attorney General is conducting an antitrust investigation of complaints that Google harms competition with its search engine. Foundem and Microsoft have popped into the picture again. – Google said Sept. 3 that Texas Attorney General Greg
Abbott is conducting an antitrust probe of complaints that the company stifles Websites
that compete with its search engine.
Search Engine Land
broke the news and Google Deputy General Counsel Don
Harrison confirmed the investigation in a
b…
Industry observers are split over whether the increasingly aggressive antitrust stance taken by U.S. regulators is a good or bad thing for the IT industry. – Officials with the Federal Trade Commission say the agreement
the FTC reached with Intel to settle antitrust allegations will create a
more competitive playing field that will benefit vendors, OEMs and customers
alike.
The settlement, announced Aug. 4, heated up the simmering
debate about the d…
Intel agrees to a set of restrictions in its business practices as part of a settlement to resolve an antitrust lawsuit brought by the FTC. Intel has not admitted to any wrongdoing. – Intel can no longer use its market dominance and money to hinder competition
from the likes of Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia, according to an agreement
between the giant chip maker and the Federal Trade Commission announced Aug. 4.
The agreement resolves
a lawsuit filed against Intel in Dece…
SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 4, 2010 – Intel and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have reached a tentative settlement in the antitrust suit filed by the Commission December 16. The FTC sued Intel alleging Intel had violated Section 5 of the FTC Act. The settlement agreement expressly states that Intel does not admit either any violation of law or that the facts alleged in the complaint are true. The agreement approved today by the Commission is subject to a 30 day public comment period and final approval by the Commission.
“This agreement provides a framework that will allow us to continue to compete and to provide our customers the best possible products at the best prices,” said Doug Melamed, Intel senior vice president and general counsel. “The settlement enables us to put an end to the expense and distraction of the FTC litigation.”
A copy of the agreement can be found at www.intel.com/pressroom/legal.
About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.
Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
A special master appointed by a judge ruled that Intel’s business practices, including giving OEMs discounts to limit their use of AMD products, did not harm consumers, and in some cases those discounts were passed onto consumers. He denied the request for class-action status for the lawsuit. – Intel got a rare win in court when a special master in a case filed by
consumers ruled that he had found no evidence that consumers had been hurt by
the giant chip maker’s business practice of giving discounts to computer
makers.
Special Master Vincent Poppiti, ruling on the case, which was
fil…
Intel and the Federal Trade Commission reportedly have reached a settlement in the agencys lawsuit against Intel. The deal would not include a regulatory fine, but would monitor Intels business practices in the future. – Intel reportedly has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade
Commission, which in December sued the giant chip maker over business
practices regulators said unfairly stifled competition.
According to a July 19 report by Reuters that
quoted an unnamed source close to the FTC, the proposed set…
Google’s $700 million bid for ITA Software July 1 is sure to attract regulatory scrutiny because of the size of the deal and growing concerns about the search engine’s sway over the Web. Some believe Google could use its power to ding ITA customers Microsoft Bing, Kayak.com, Expedia and Orbitz. Others believe Google could use its strength in search to shuttle travel traffic to its own offering or gouge ITA’s existing software licensees in prices. However, some experts say the deal should ultimately pass muster because it represents the search engine’s expansion into a new vertical. – Google’s
$700 million bid for flight information
software giant ITA Software July 1 is sure to attract regulatory scrutiny because of
the size of the deal and growing concerns about the search engine’s sway over
the Web.
Some believe Google could use its power to ding
those that use ITA’s dat…
The FTC filed a lawsuit in December 2009 accusing Intel of anti-competitive business practices intended to stifle competition from AMD and Nvidia. Intel and the FTC have now filed a joint motion to suspend the legal proceedings while the two sides work to negotiate a settlement. – Intel and the Federal Trade Commission have suspended legal proceedings
related to the lawsuit filed by the federal regulators against the chip maker
while the two sides try to negotiate a settlement.
In a statement released June 21, Intel officials said the two
sides agreed to file a joint moti…
The same court in September 2008 rejected a previous appeal and upheld a judgment by Indonesia’s competition regulator KPPU that Temasek breached antitrust laws by using indirect stakes in PT Telekomunikasi Selular, known as Telkomsel, and PT Indosat, Indonesia’s top two mobile-phone service providers, to fix prices. The Central Jakarta district court first ruled in KPPU’s favor in May 2008.
Apple could find itself the target of either a Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission investigation, according to an unnamed source in the New York Post, over its development-tool policies that exclude products built by companies such as Adobe. A clause in the developer agreement for the recently unveiled iPhone OS 4 requires that applications be originally written in Objective-C, C++ or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine. The unnamed source offered no timetable for when the federal government might announce such an investigation is underway.
– Apple may find itself under scrutiny by either the
Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission, according to an unnamed
source quoted in a May 3 article in the New York Post. The newspaper suggested
that the two agencies are “days away” from deciding which of them would pursue
an actua…
Google Feb. 23 said three Web companies have filed complaints with the European Commission alleging that the search engine is demoting their Web sites in Google search results and not respecting fair competition. Complainants include UK price comparison site, Foundem, a French legal search engine called ejustice.fr, and Microsoft’s Ciao from Bing, a product shopping site. Google is no stranger to discord in Europe. Switzerland is suing the search engine over its Street View feature in Google Maps. In 2008, Google halved its data retention duration to 9 months after the EU complained.
–
Google Feb. 23 said three Web companies have filed
complaints with the European Commission alleging that the search engine is
demoting their Web sites in Google search results and not respecting fair
competition.
The European Commission, the antitrust body for the
European Union, …
Businesses think Europe’s trustbusters should be kept on a tighter leash
IT WAS probably with some relief that Joaquin Almunia took up his post as the European Union’s competition commissioner earlier this month. One of his main tasks in his previous job, as commissioner for monetary affairs, was to police the public finances of the countries that use the euro. But he lacked any means to sanction the fiscally lax, such as Greece. That left a mess that his successor is now struggling to clean up.
In his new job Mr Almunia may have the opposite problem: too much power. He has the authority to block mergers, to force companies to sell assets and to fine heavily firms judged to have thwarted fair competition. There is only limited redress for businesses that feel they have been punished unfairly. All this has prompted a growing fuss about how his agency treats companies it accuses of taking part in cartels or of trying to maintain monopolies by freezing out smaller rivals. The commission, competition lawyers complain, acts as prosecutor, judge and jury. …
As one long-running antitrust case comes to an end, others emerge
TRUSTBUSTERS on either side of the Atlantic had seemed in permanent disagreement in 2009, at least when it came to technology firms. In January the European Commission decided to go after Microsoft for bundling its web browser with its operating system—a tactic which America’s Department of Justice (DoJ) had decided to let stand a long time before. In May the commission fined Intel €1.06 billion (then $1.44 billion) for having abused its dominance, whereas the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington did not seem interested. And in November the commission objected to the proposed $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems, a troubled maker of computer hardware, by Oracle, a business-software giant—a deal that the DoJ had already approved.
Yet on December 16th, American and European antitrust regulators began playing in tune. First Neelie Kroes, Europe’s competition commissioner, announced that she had reached a settlement with Microsoft. Starting in March, all versions of Windows will come with a “choice screen” inviting users to install any of 12 different browsers. This should make Europe’s browser market more competitive, and end the decade-long antitrust action against the world’s biggest software firm. …
