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Baby Bells Open to Antitrust Lawsuits
jobugeek writes "A New York appeals court has opened up the abililty for consumers to sue the Baby Bells for antitrust violations. The question now is, will anyone try to."
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Well, it looks like Verizon's finally open to being sued for monopolistic practices.
:]
Lawyers to Verizon: "Can you hear us now? Good..."
The question now is, will anyone try to.
Uh yah,
What, you think the judge was bored one day and decided to open this up?
This decision is the fruit of legal action brought forth by the very people who will be suing.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
I tried to call some lawyers involved in a class-action anti-trust law suit against the phone company, but their phone was disconnected....
Seems it was all just smoke and mirrors....
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
How about their little shell game with caller ID and related tech?
First, it's we'll sell you caller ID. Then they sell the spammers an anonymous account. Then, they sell you a feature to block anonymous callers. Then they sell the spammers a feature to get through to people that block anonymous callers.
It's a frickin racket. This is what the MOB does.
Pay us some money and we'll protect you from spammers. Oh, the protection isn't working? Pay us some more money.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Damn! I'm fine with my local, but I really want to sue Verizon.
Not for their service or anything like that. I just hate the "Can you hear me now? Good," guy.
Yes...
In reality, it's supposed to be the first and last. However, even lawyers deserve to be paid something. So all you're doing is arguing over the fee.
On one hand, $5 IS significantly smaller than $150. On the other hand, without the lawyer and his quick thinking you would have had $0 and the company would have seen NO consequences. All-in-all, I'd say you got a pretty good payday for filling out a form and mailing it in.
That is all.
The Baby Bells have nothing to fear. As Microsoft has demonstrated, even the mightiest case (such as the Clinton DOJ had) can be reduced to nothing by delaying tactics and tons of cash.
And the current DOJ has a philosophical bent against antitrust laws. The top boys don't believe in those laws. And as the past year demonstrated, even with a case already won, they will let it peter out without comment. Oh, who are we kidding, it was Bush's decision.
There is no chance that the current DOJ will prosecute antitrust cases. They have other priorities, such as medical-marijuana laws and tapping the Internet. This is not a troll, simply the truth. The Bush admin will not fight monopolies because it doesn't believe they should be regulated.
And as for the courts, eventually the politically canny people in the White House will break the logjam on the hyperconservative, Chicago School federal judge appointments, and even if a future administration cares to pursue an antitrust case, it will face a solid wall of Reagan/Bush/Bush II appointees who will shoot them down with glee.
As for greedy lawyers in private cases, I just don't get it. If the Feds can't or won't, and no private individual could possibly hope to confront billions of dollars worth of legal opposition, what other possibility for redress of monopolistic practices would be left if the private lawyers weren't trying to profit from class action suits? If you hate lawyers more than the utterly powerful corporations (who are nothing more than lawyers themselves, don't forget!), then who the hell can stop the juggernaut? Let the lawyers make their millions if our executive, legislative, and judicial branches are philosophically incapable of doing their jobs to protect the citizens of the U.S. from out-of-control corporate lords.
If you have problem with your phone carrier (such as a baby bell) giving you poor service, taking a month to install a phone line, etc...There are laws you prolly don't know about that are set by your state's government about how soon the phone company must give you service after you make the request for the service (such as adding a new phone line).
When you have problems with the phone company, look up in your phone book under the state government listings for the Public Service Commission or the Public Utilities Commission. Call them and then ask for the phone number to their complaints line. Then call the complaints line. You will speak to someone that has and will contact people higher up in the phone company's service and management departments that will get your service requests done PROMPTLY. If you make a request for service and the phone company doesn't provide it within a reasonable amount of time, the PSC or PUC WILL fine the phone company for violating state laws by not providing you service within a reasonable amount of time according to the laws in your state.
For example, my mom bought a new house. She called the phone company routinely for a month straight. Bellsouth kept saying there were no more available lines in her area and they would have to engineer a solution and get back with her. After putting up with this for a month she finally called the PSC and told them what was going on. The next day she had a working phone line.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Ok, since we are part of Slashdot we naturally compare this to Microsoft, but it's worse.
Almost everyone in the US pays for phone service. Strangly, I have more choice for my OS than I do for our phone service. Besides, many people still don't have computers, but they have phones.
I pay for an MS OS license via a PC seller once (if ever). Since they buy in volume, its maybe 30 bucks.
I pay more to my phone company each month.
So, to the question, will anyone bother to sue? I hope so.
this is not a sig