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N.Y. AG Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel
CWmike writes "New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against microprocessor maker Intel, alleging that the company engaged in a 'systematic campaign' of illegal conduct to protect a monopoly. Cuomo's lawsuit alleges that Intel extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers and threatened to punish those perceived to be working too closely with Intel competitors. Intel gave computer makers payments totaling billions of dollars in exchange for the exclusive agreements, and the company threatened to cut off payments to computer makers or fund their competitors when they worked with other microprocessor makers, the lawsuit alleged. Cuomo's lawsuit comes less than two weeks after news reports that the FTC is considering filing a formal complaint against Intel. 'Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market,' Cuomo said in a statement. 'Intel's actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices. These illegal tactics must stop and competition must be restored to this vital marketplace.'"
Lets see if they do a better job on intel then they did on microsoft.
With that language, I wonder if he's just going for a consent decree regarding future conduct, and maybe a slap on the wrist. I wonder if this will in any way lead to AMD being made whole.
Ah if only I could just use find/replace and find all 'Intel' in the article and change them to 'ISP X' then it would be a good day... Seriously, they should be going after the much more monoploistic ISPs in this country then Intel.
I wonder if this has anything to do with AMD (err Global Foundaries) dropping a few billion on the construction of a plant a few miles from Albany?
but I very seriously doubt whether Andrew Cuomo could tell a microprocessor from a microbrew
Well, that depends on how many he has had.
My understanding, from talking with Intel employees, is that Paul Otellini is not a good CEO.
My understanding is that only one member of the Intel Board of Directors has any technical knowledge. How can people with no technical knowledge oversee an enormously high-tech company? They can't.
Intel board member John L. Thornton was president and CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, it says. Goldman Sachs helped engineer the present financial collapse. Since the collapse, Goldman Sachs has been very profitable. The U.S. government has done NOTHING to prevent further abuse.
You must not use much of their portfolio professionally to say that. The free replacements are quite non-functional for anything but most basic tasks.
On the other hand, there are lots of commercial offerings that compete well with Adobe's products. Other than Photoshop and Acrobat, all of their other heavyweights (Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, Dreamweaver, etc.) have significant competitors. I'm not really sure why they should be considered a big bad monopoly.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
This time, the govt will just seize the corporation and take over. All in the name of national security and importance to the economy or whatever.
As a leftard, I WISH! Seriously, you teabaggers need to stop prickteasing me with all this socialism that's supposed to happen, but doesn't.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
If you can't see a monopoly abuse on Intel's part at this point, I'd say you are the one with the agenda.
Besides, isn't doing good things so that you can get reelected SUPPOSED to be the way things should work?
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Really, the simplest and most effective solution is to line up a few greedy CEOs and shoot them dead. Then the ones that weren't executed will know you mean business, that they need to play fair. So, if CEOs are as smart as they are supposed to be, to hold those corporate positions, only a very few need to be executed, for the message to be thoroughly understood and acted-upon.
Assuming Adobe has a monopoly in some area or other, precisely how have they abused it?
The illegal part is the abuse/protection, not the monopoly itself.
It means a government-induced monopoly. No competition can exist because it is illegal to build on these public "properties".
"bubble keep going up". Bubbles don't always go up. That's why they are called bubbles.
Everyone in the financial industry knew two things: 1) The bubble would collapse, and 2) The U.S. government, led by the Federal Reserve Bank, composed of former financial industry executives, would make the taxpayers give money to the financial institutions.
You didn't read the Rolling Stone article linked in the grandparent comment, did you? Or anything else about Goldman Sachs and the financial collapse?
Note that the "Federal Reserve Bank" is not a bank, it is not federal, and there is nothing in reserve. Three lies in three words, in the name!
This Slashdot comment, The Investment Banking cohorts JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are the **huge** winners, discusses some of the new ways Goldman Sachs will make money in the future using the power of government. That Slashdot comment links to the Rolling Stone article, but that copy of the article has been removed. See the link to the article in the grandparent comment.
The corruption is not new. For example, see the May 13, 2002 article in Business Week, How Corrupt Is Wall Street? New revelations have investors baying for blood, and the scandal is widening Quote: "Consider Enron, which has paid $323 million to Wall Street in underwriting fees since 1986, according to Thomson. Goldman, Sachs & Co. (GS ) pocketed $69 million of that..." Enron, of course, went bankrupt when it was discovered the company was dishonest.
Beginning in 2002, Warren Buffett began very publicly calling derivatives "financial weapons of mass destruction". That particular part of the corruption was allowed by the removal of laws designed to prevent fraud, at the beginning of George W. Bush's first term. Nothing was done to reinstate the laws, and that's why we are suffering now. Why was nothing done? Numerous articles say the corruption was allowed to happen because Goldman Sachs people, and other financial company executives control the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.
If the past is any guide, Intel will be fined a trivial sum like $100 million, and the corruption and anti-competitive activity against AMD will continue.
Part of loving the U.S. is becoming aware of, and trying to stop, the corruption in government.
I would like to know what the Libertarian position is on monopolistic competition?
I believe one ought be free to do what one wishes with one's money, and it follows that paying someone (some people call it bribery) to persuade them to a position is fine. The problem is i haven't studied this and, not being an expert, it's difficult for me to see negative externalities that may ensue should this be brought into practice. Any advice?
How can a board of directors "look out for the interests of the stockholder" if the directors cannot understand the business of the company?
Could you explain to me how you think that allowing a company to break the law is looking out for the interests of the stockholder?
Cuomo's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware Wednesday, alleges that Intel extracted exclusive agreements from large computer makers and threatened to punish those perceived to be working too closely with Intel competitors.
Why is the New York AG filing lawsuits in Delaware?
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Why bother? Intel is just as nasty as M$. If they couldn't make microsoft behave why do they think they can make Intel do right?
Are you even paying attention to what we're talking about?
Turning your brain off doesn't make problems go away. We're talking about ISPs with government-granted monopolies supported by the restriction against the creation of competition.
The recent anti-trust scam is about defining the market so that the target is a monopoly by definition. That's why "server" computers (that might even use PC hardware) were artificially excluded from the "market" so that MS could be considered a monopoly.
And the alternatives to government-authorized and strictly-regulated monopolies in a market with natural monopoly tendencies are...
1. No service provider
2. Unregulated monopolies.
Maybe you weren't around when telephone and/or cable infrastructure was being built out. The choice was: license a monopoly, or get no service.
Even now, these markets tend to natural monopolies due to high overhead and infrastructure costs. So if we deregulate, we'll still end up with a monopoly... but it'll be less regulated one. Yay.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I think that people are either forgetting or ignoring this point:
AMD doesn't and didn't have the fab capabilities to take the market overnight. It would take a long time to start eating away the market share that Intel has. The amount of fab capacity that Intel has is enormous. They could stockpile months of chips if they wanted. AMD was selling chips as soon as they came off the production line.
AMD could not have gone to Dell and said "I'll supply all of your x86 chips cheaper than Intel, buy mine instead" if they wanted to. They wouldn't have been able to keep up with the demand.