Defining Antitrust
*be careful how much you rely on one brand
No, antitrust is not the same thing as an anti-hero, though if one felt compelleted to listen to Taylor Swift’s song, Anti-Hero, the lines — It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me — bear some form of connection to companies that have been deemed in violation of antitrust laws.
Antitrust:
a. (adj.) intended to restrain market monopoly, opposing large corporations’ blockage of competition
b. (adj.) for the purpose of fostering a healthy offering of corporate services for the public
Antitrust law:
a law or array of laws focused on protecting trade, consumers, and business functioning from one entity’s usurp of control over choice or price
Example:
Teddy didn’t understand why the Court held that Google was in violation of antitrust laws for maintaining a monopoly of general search services.1 Teddy loved Google’s search services, especially on National Teddy Bear Day, when Google would design a header with teddy bears.
“It’s a free country,” Teddy said to his friend, Gator. “If Google put in all of the time and investment to be the best search engine it could be, it shouldn’t be penalized for that.”
“No, Teddy,” said Gator. “What you don’t understand is that Google was controlling all of your searches. You only found stuffed animals that Google reccomended. Google paid entities to be the first search engine that pops up, and other entities paid Google to put their stuffed animals towards the top of Google’s feed. Because there was no healthy competition, there was no real regulation of the type or quality of stuffed animals Google was showing you in your searches.”
"I’m pulling up the Court’s decision now. It reads: ‘After all, ‘Google’ is used as a verb. Even on Bing, ‘google.com’ is the number one search.’ I guess I see why it is better to have healthy competition, especially if it means that I’ll find some new stuffed animals.”2
Id. at 160.