Intel in Antitrust Trouble in Japan

vincecate writes "The Japan Fair Trade Commission has ruled that Intel violated antitrust laws in Japan. Giving customers discounts based on the volume of your products they purchased is good business. However, Intel was adjusting customer discounts based on the volume of competing products they purchased, which is not legal. After the ruling, AMD responded saying, "We encourage governments around the globe to ensure that their markets are not being harmed as well". While Intel responded saying, "Intel continues to believe its business practices are both fair and lawful."

Comments

Give me a rational reason why this is a problem?

[Saven Marek]

Can someone tell me honestly what's wrong here? Intel are the ones who have control over their product. They get to sell their products and define how much it sells for. Why are governments getting involved?

Obviously if a company is buying more of a competitor's products then they're buying less of yours, so your own are more expensive to them because they are buying in lower quantities. that is simple grade school economics.

Having governments butt their noses in like this only forces lowest commen denominators to win and means someone could come along and sell a piece of cheese as a CPU and anyone who tries to sell a real CPU could get labelled a monopoly.

Re:Bulls**t

[R.Caley]

Monopolies are bad[...]

If there is only one grocer in your town selling adulterated flour, while all the rest are selling quality stuff, he has a monopoly on adulterated flour. Is that a bad thing? Would your life be improved if some of the others moved into the adulteration business?