"Clegg wrote that Facebook is responsible for the sort of rapid, consumer-friendly innovation antitrust law is meant to encourage.In the United States, half of all online shopping transactions happen on Amazon, giving the ecommerce company sway over merchants that use its platforms.But in a 2018 letter to shareholders, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said "Amazon remains a small player in global retail" because most commerce still happens offline.Finally, some software developers argue Apple has a monopoly on its app marketplace, and uses this power to demand hefty commissions and engage in other anticompetitive practices.Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told CBS News in an interview that aired on Tuesday that Apple does not have a dominant position in any market.It is difficult to show a violation of U.S. antitrust law, legal experts said.It is not enough for regulators to establish that a company has monopoly power. They must also show anticompetitive conduct - an abuse of that dominant position aimed at bypassing fair competition. "You can get a monopoly just by being a good competitor and that's fine," said Chris Sagers, a professor of antitrust law at Cleveland State University.Under current precedent, the Department of Justice and the FTC also need to show that consumers are being harmed, something that in recent decades has typically been measured by whether prices are going up and innovation is slowing.Using these metrics, it could be difficult to prove that technology companies, which do not charge money for many of their services, are hurting consumers, some legal experts said.But Charlotte Slaiman, an antitrust lawyer with consumer rights group Public Knowledge, said there is a growing consensus among economists and the public that it is misleading to call services such as Google and Facebook free. "What is really going on is that consumers are bartering with their data in exchange for a service," Slaiman said.In 2013, the FTC closed an investigation into Google's search practices. The agency said that, while Google's changes to how it displayed search results likely harmed some rivals, there was "ample evidence" that Google was trying to improve user experience.The FTC and Justice Department can both file civil lawsuits in federal court and ask judges to order changes to a company's business model.

Source: thestar June 06, 2019 01:41 UTC