Domain: competition-commission.org.uk
Stories and comments across the archive that link to competition-commission.org.uk.
Comments · 6
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Re:Serious and Organized Crime?
What do you want to bet that serious and well-planned out crimes won't include:
Goldman Sachs UK (where to start)
Paypal UK (seizure of users' money without refund)
Microsoft UK (organized monopoly abuse)
Intel UK (organized monopoly abuse)
and anyone else who's a paymaster?There are other organisations for that, such as the Competition Commission. Though organisations of that size are more likely to be referred to the EU Competition Commission, who have (very widely reported) successful antitrust cases against Microsoft and Intel in the last few years.
SOCA on the other hand is more like the US Drug Enforcement Agency, a largely intelligence-led agency dealing with mainly criminal gangs - particularily "class A drugs, people smuggling and human trafficking, major gun crime, fraud, computer crime and money laundering", usually teaming up with other specialised agencies. For example, if you make a formal report under the anti-money laundering regulations it goes to SOCA, who make initial investigations then often pass it on to a more specific agency. Since they deal with money laundering, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were round at Goldman Sachs and especially Paypal quite often, albeit investigating customers rather than the company.
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Re:Display Hardware and make software playable.
People were buying 2 NESes for every 1 C64 sold.
You can prove anything you want with selective use of statistics, and that's very selective. How many brands of console were there in the 80s vs brands of computer? For the former, I can think of two or three: for the latter, I can come up with a dozen off the top of my head (Apple, Commodore, Atari, Amiga, Tandy, Dragon, Spectrum, Amstrad, IBM, Sinclair QL, Acorn, BBC).
But to get some actual stats into the picture, see the UK's Competition Commission's 1995 report on the market for video games. It seems that, in the UK at least, consoles overtook what the report calls "home computers" in about 1992, but still lagged behind combined domestic "home computer" and "personal computer" ownership.
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Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up...
it does, after all, imply that there is only one contender in a given market
Linguistically, yes. Legally, no. In the UK, 25% market share is enough to fall within the remit of the (now renamed) Monopolies and Mergers Commission. -
Re:antidisestablishmentarianism
Whoops! We're not facing a second reading by the parliament (11) just yet. From http://wiki.ffii.org/Com050228En:
"In the mean time, highly placed government sources have also confirmed that the directive will once more appear as an A-item on 7 March, this time on the agenda of the responsible Competition Council formation. All hope for a democratic and balanced resolution now rests on the shoulders of the ministers and officials who will attend that Council meeting."
Like the article says, get in contact with whichever part of your government will be attending the Competition Council meeting: for UK readers, I believe that is these people: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/footer/co ntact_points.htm.
Competition Commission
Victoria House
Southampton Row
London
WC1B 4AD
Although I doubt it will be possible to change Labour's mind on the issue, council decisions must be unanimous; that's how Poland and Denmark(?) managed to block the decisions before. -
Call to action: what about an antitrust complain?
any UK citizen feeling it's worth sending a note to UK Competition Commission?
here the complaint procedure -
Start here
http://www.microcaptrader.com/featuredmicrocap_mo
v i.html
I admit to not reading this one, but it appears to be part of Sega's rental licensing. It may be a big pile of crap, though.