Archive for January 22nd, 2010
The Limits of Antitrust Metaphors
I had not spoted this before, but this is a good one. To describe the practices at the heart of the Microsoft II case – the recently settled alleged abusive tying of Internet Explorer with Windows OS – N. Kroes declared that MSFT’s conduct is:
“As if you went to the supermarket and they only offered you one brand of shampoo on the shelf, and all the other choices are hidden out the back, and not everyone knows about them. What we are saying today is that all the brands should be on the shelf“.
The problem here? This colourful metaphor entirely misses its purpose. Rather than conveying the message that there was a competition problem in the market, it stresses that the issue primarily pertains to (poor) consumer information.
Chillin'Competition 