[thelist] Business practices and Anti-Trust

[the head lemur]

> This fallacy keeps cropping up and I keep wondering why as its total
> rubbish. Please check your facts before you continue to propagate this
type
> of nonsense.

Illegal Business Practices
http://www.ftc.gov/bc/compguide/illegal.htm

HORIZONTAL PRICE-FIXING IN CYBERSPACE
http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/other/confbd4.htm

The case law and decree you were looking for:

Council of Fashion Designers of America
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1995/9506/cdfa.htm

Before you fire off a response that this is a brick and mortar case, you
need to read and understand that nothing was in writing.
Here we havew a situtiation where it is in writing, archived, in the search
engines, in my memory, your memory, and on our harddrives.

The second point is, despite as far as i know we pay no dues, have
membership cards, a tax exempt status, we are sharing information,
experience and collaborating in a large forum.

For our European visitors,

Article 81 of the EC Treaty
http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/legislation/treaties/ec/art81_en.html

Has any internet association/forum/BBS/group/confederation of dunces been
prosecuted?

To my knowledge, No.

But do you want to be the first?

Your response that you are beyond the reach of the US anti-trust regulators,
I would direct your attention to extradition agreements between the US  the
EU and the majority of the planet.

If such a case were to come up, the FTC being a Government agency holds
hearings in Washington DC, and in most cases written dispositions are the
usual method of fact finding, relieving you of the burden of flying in to be
diposed, or testifying. But not in all cases.

As to your other posting,

4) This sort of reasoning would prohibit the publication of pricing
guidelines of the sort published by the graphic design industry for years.

I would refresh your memory from my original post;

"The exception is statistical analysis such as provided on some sites, whose
links escape me but represent an overview of rates on an aggregate basis
with individual serial numbers filed off."

But do you want to be the first?