Re: [antitrust-policy] how does that affect those with no competitive interests?

> Antitrust and competition law are about actions in which companies
> that would normally be competing don't.  I listed the usual ones in my
> revised strawman, price fixing, bid rigging, refusal to deal, tying,
> and market allocations.

That looked like a reasonable strawman (another version of "Don't be
bold"), and I'm not sure how much I care about whether we call the
result a policy, guidelines or an FAQ ... however ...

> If you aren't an organization that could plausibly do those things,
> you needn't worry about it.

Not exactly. Hypothetically, if an anti-trust suit were filed over a
decision made in an IETF WG meeting, everyone in that meeting could
find the legal system intruding into their professional lives.

> If I worked for Oracle, I would be
> careful about discussing prices of databases (or workstations or
> whatever else Oracle sells these days.)  If I worked for a university
> that sells none of those things, theres no competition for me to
> restrain.

Hypothetical opposing counsel may have a second opinion on that topic ;-).

There is a potential conspiracy that hypothetical opposing counsel

could accuse everyone in the meeting of participating in, and that may
be enough to make your life quite "interesting".  Absence of an obvious
financial interest in the outcome may not suffice to quickly convince
opposing counsel to leave you alone.

Thanks,
--David

________________________________
From: antitrust-policy-bounces@ietf.org [antitrust-policy-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of John Levine [johnl@taugh.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 1:53 PM
To: antitrust-policy@ietf.org
Cc: jmh@joelhalpern.com
Subject: Re: [antitrust-policy] how does that affect those with no competitive interests?

>Actually, I would parse it somewhat differently.
>The behaviors to be avoided are to be avoided by everyone.

Only if your fear that Someone Might Sue is greater than your desire
to get work done.

Antitrust and competition law are about actions in which companies
that would normally be competing don't.  I listed the usual ones in my
revised strawman, price fixing, bid rigging, refusal to deal, tying,
and market allocations.

If you aren't an organization that could plausibly do those things,
you needn't worry about it.  If I worked for Oracle, I would be
careful about discussing prices of databases (or workstations or
whatever else Oracle sells these days.)  If I worked for a university
that sells none of those things, theres no competition for me to
restrain.

I realize that Oracle people would proabably be uncomfortable in a
room where other people were discussing database prices, because
someone might claim it was a form of signalling.  But depending on the
circumstances, it might make more sense for the people having the
discussion to stop, or for the Oracle person to leave so the
discussion can continue.  There's no policy that can anticipate all
the situations like that and prescribe rules for them.  In a situation
like that, it's fine for the Oracle person to say "if you have that
conversation, I'll have to leave", and either outcome could be OK.

R's,
John

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