Tag: ANTITRUST

A decade after fighting a major antitrust lawsuit, Microsoft has filed exactly the same charges against Google. Today, the company will file a formal antitrust complaint with the European Union, joining a collection of small companies that have already made similar charges against the search giant. Microsoft is hoping that the E.U. will take some action against Google, and perhaps convince ...

In the largest deal the wireless industry has seen since 2004, AT&T has agreed to buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stocks. In acquiring T-Mobile from parent company Deutsche Telekom, AT&T will pick up an extra 34 million wireless customers, and will provide service to about 43-percent of all U.S. cell phones, making it the country's largest network operator. At the end of ...

Earlier this week, Apple unveiled its new App Store subscription plan, and immediately caught flak from journalists, developers, and even some consumers. The policy requires that companies offering subscriptions through the app store offer the same service, at the same price they do elsewhere -- but Apple skims 30-percent off the top for itself. Of course, this could force some developers to ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... Apple moved 300,000 iPads during the gadget's first Saturday on the market, and sales have certainly remained steady since. This past Friday, a mere 28 days after the device's release, Apple claims a consumer officially nabbed the millionth iPad. By comparison, the iPhone didn't reach that milestone until its 74th day of ...

Highlights from this morning's other big tech headlines.... It's a sad day for satirists, slackers and Internet meme followers. Despite support from the film's director, the classic 'Downfall' Hitler mashups have begun disappearing from YouTube. Constantin Films has apparently decided its 2004 film has received enough free publicity, and is reportedly demanding the removal of the ridiculous ...

Few people know the finer points of antitrust law better than those over at Microsoft. So when one of the monolith's bigwigs accuses another company of unfair business practices, you'd take it pretty seriously, right? Then again, can you ever really trust an antitruster? Speaking at a search engine conference on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer decried what he sees as clearly unfair ...

Ticketmaster, the bane of Pearl Jam's existence so many moons ago, has just finalized a major corporate merger with Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter. The financial marriage only went through, however, after the U.S. Department of Justice gave both companies the green light, a full year after the merger was first submitted for governmental approval. According to Wired, the ...

Last October, Google agreed to pay a $125 million settlement to the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in order to continue its digital publishing venture, Google Books. But the move still has to meet court approval. The Los Angeles Times reports that, as the window of opportunity to block the agreement closes -- there's a September 4th deadline for comments -- Microsoft, ...

The Senate investigation into anti-competitive practices among the major cellular carriers is moving forward, and AT&T and Verizon have vehemently denied any accusations of price-fixing, Reuters reported earlier this week. A few years ago, every major carrier decided that individual text messages should cost $0.20, instead of the $0.10 that had been the standard for years. But, as ...

Rising text messaging costs are annoying, but it turns out they might also be criminal. Senator Herb Kohl (Democrat, Wisconsin), a prominent member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who heads up the subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, has targeted the cell phone companies for suspiciously anticompetitive practices. A couple of years back in 2005, just about every ...