Feb 25, 2010

Antitrust & Lobbying

The traditional way to succeed in the world of business was to have better product, better marketing, better service etc., than the competition. The firm had to strive to please the consumer. (It's a bit idealistic view,but whatever...)

The weapon of modern times is Antitrust. Big companies lobby in Brussels (or in Washington DC) for antitrust examination of their rivals to get them tangled in red tape, and slow their growth. Last case is a preliminary examination of Google, triggered by a complaint by Ciao! (owned by Microsoft), and two other EU based companies. Often these investigation find nothing wrong, but end up damaging the investigated company.

It would be very sad if the legal environment in the Western World incentivized companies to spend their resources on lawsuits and lobbying rather than on competition to create the best product...

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