The last time the courts would have seriously weighing the giant technology company for a quarter of a century after that, It turns out that Microsoft has strangled the competition illegally In the personal computer program.
Yes, the Federal Provincial Court judge said yes to force Microsoft to divide into two parts, and to separate the Windows monopolistic operating system from office productivity products and other programs. but The Court of Appeal delivered The arrangement, which is called the option of disintegration “a treatment that is imposed only with great caution, is partly due to its long -term effectiveness is rarely confirmed.”
In a pair of historical procedures this month in a courtroom in Washington, the issue of dismantling the large technology company will be on the judicial table again.
In a trial to combat monopoly that started on Monday, The Federal Trade Committee argued that death She maintained illegal monopoly on social media through her Instagram and WhatsApp operations. The agency seeks to force a dead person to strip both. Next week in separate procedures, a federal judge will hear arguments from Ministry of Justice About the reason for the court to dismantle Google to treat the company’s monopoly in searching on the Internet.
“But it could be risky surgery,” said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University and a former head of the Federal Trade Committee.
Over the course of generations, the courts faced a dilemma of taking the measures that must be taken in major monopoly cases as soon as a dominant company was found that participated in anti -competition behavior. In the 1947 Supreme Court’s decision, Judge Robert Jackson wrote unbearable that if the court’s solution did not open to the competition, the government would have “won a lawsuit and lost a case.”
But while the court ruling depends on examining facts in the past, its treatment is looking forward to the future. The goal is to liberalize the markets instead of toping them – and creating a competitive environment that leads to more new ideas and new companies, more innovation and low prices.
The challenge lies in a new importance, where the organizers pay a great pushing for the technology giants in a A series of anti -monopoly cases Obtaining the authority they have on communications, trade and information.
In different A lawsuit against GoogleThe Ministry of Justice is awaiting the judge’s decision regarding the company’s dominance in advertising technology. The section has He also filed a lawsuit against Apple On her tactics to protect the profitable iPhone. FTC He filed a lawsuit against the AmazonAnd, saying that the company is illegally protected by its online retail monopoly.
This wave of litigation is likely to continue to combat monopoly, including appeals, for years. If the government wins any of its cases, the judge can order the disintegration of the worst result of the companies.
Anti -monopoly experts said history indicates that these requests can be effective. But the results in improving competition were mixed.
Standard of, an energy giant founded by John de Rockefeller in 1870, was the distinctive state of the progressive era and trust in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The company was It was separated by the Supreme Court In 1911, it was divided into 34 entities formed the original Standard Oil Trust, which controlled the production, refining, distribution and prices of the oil industry. While this initially helped in the competition, the descendants of confidence over time became oil giants on their own, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Conocophillips.
The disintegration of AT & T, in a settlement in 1982, followed a lengthy lawsuit to combat justice, which accused the company of illegally monopolizing the telecommunications market in America. The local phone business was divided into seven regional “Baby Bell” companies, the demand opened the phone and phone markets for long distances, increased competition and reduced prices.
In anti -monopoly terms, the “structural” solution like this generally means disintegration. But there Less steps than forced sale Anti -monopoly experts said this could form markets and stimulate competition.
In 1969, under pressure from the government monopoly suit that accuses it of monopolizing the computer market on its day, IBM dismantled its devices from the programs – which it treats as separate companies, sold and of the same price independently. The program will not be “free”, listed in the computer price. This helped to ignite the commercial software industry, as Microsoft was the largest winner.
I avoided microsoft disintegrationBut eventually settled in 2001 it contained a ban against contracts that mainly used Windows monopoly as a club by restricting personal computer makers to distribute the competitors program. This restriction kept the door open for a new competition in the browser and research program. Google was the leading beneficiary.
“These were strong treatments without breaking up for more competition,” said Fiona Scott Morton, professor of economics at the University of Yale.
Strong technology companies coming to face the audit in the courtroom are the definition and Google.
On Monday, FTC and Meta, which was previously Facebook, submitted their opening data at the US Provincial Court of Colombia. Then Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the company, took the situation. The essence of the government’s issue is that Facebook has been receiving a large exaggerated wage for more than a decade for Instagram and WhatsApp, to kill them to protect the monopoly of profitable social media.
Meta replied that Instagram and WhatsApp have grown and flourished under its ownership. The company argued, there is a lot of competition in the social media market, including ascending to Tiktok.
Anti -monopoly experts said that if the government wins the issue of definition, the possible treatment move will be before the court to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
Next week in the same Washington court, it faces Google Treatments in the lawsuit By the Ministry of Justice and a group of countries to monopolize online search. In August, Judge found Amit B. Mihata that Google illegally maintained the monopoly of research.
To restore competition, the government asked the court to ask Google to sell Chrome, the famous web browser, or revolve around Android, or smartphone operating system, or is prevented from making its services mandatory on Android phones. Chrome and Android are strong distribution channels to search Google.
Google described the government’s list as a “great excessive proposal” that “goes beyond the court’s decision” that would harm consumers by providing lower products to them. The company also said it will resume.
Tim Woo, a law professor at Columbia University who was a White House consultant for technology policy and competition in the Biden administration, supports separation in Google and Meta.
He said: “If you want to move the fate, the structural solutions are clean and mainly self-installation-you disintegrate it and go away.” (Mr. Wu writes to the New York Times.)
But any disintegration matter will be resumed, and the Supreme Courts seem to be hesitant to doubt in the Microsoft era.
In a rare decision unanimous in 2021, the Supreme Court It ruled that the National Collective Sports Association Its market power cannot be used to stop payments for sports students. It was essentially the issue of setting the price of wages, which was fully decided for the plaintiffs.
However, Judge Neil M. Goroush, who writes to the court, has been dug to clarify a broader point about judicial restrictions on anti -monopoly matters.
In short, he wrote, “Judges make” the two centers “the poor” and they should never aspire to this role. “
