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DRAM Price Fixing Investigations

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-it's-still-cheap dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A few days ago after FTC antitrust charges against Rambus were thrown out, the U.S. Department of Justice and EU have both begun probes against the 4 largest memory makers in accusation of price fixing during 2001/2002. News.com.com has information regarding the pending EU investigation. Anandtech and Silcon.com both have primers on the U.S. investigation. If you thought you paid too much for RAM in 2002, chances are you may have been more right than you originally thought."

4 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. cartel by millahtime · · Score: 0, Redundant

    So, they put together a cartel to do some racketeering. Sounds illegal to me.

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    Evolution or ID?
  2. Re:Market fixes itself in this case by Brahmastra · · Score: 0, Redundant
    oops.. here it is again, formatted properly:
    In April 2002, Michael Dell said that his company, PC maker Dell, began to buy memory
    Why is price fixing by a few manufacturers a concern when alternate vendors are available? It's a problem only if the price fixers are the only vendors. The market is fixing itself. If Dell buys from the 2nd tier vendors, the price fixers have to ultimately lower their prices.
  3. fleeced! by bob+dobalina · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I knew it when I paid $20 for a half a gig! That DRAM couldn't be worth more than $17, tops.

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    B

    "I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown

  4. Well by Seven001 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I don't know about 2001 and 2002, but RAM pricing still sucks in 2004. I just paid $85 for a 512mb stick of PC-3200, and $75 for an 80GB, 7200RPM, 8mb cache HD. Really quite sad.