antitrust

eBay violated antitrust laws when it agreed not to poach employees at Intuit, according to a federal lawsuit filed today in federal court in San Jose.

According to the complaint, which was filed by the U.S. Justice Department, eBay and Intuit had an agreement not to raid each other's businesses for talent. eBay, the online marketplace, is headquartered in San Jose; Intuit is based in nearby Mountain View.

"This agreement harmed employees by lowering the salaries and benefits they might otherwise have commanded, and deprived these employees of better job opportunities at the other company," lawyers … Read more

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission is pressuring Google to reach a settlement in its antitrust investigation into the company's competitive practices, according to a new report.

Citing two people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg reported that FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz is pushing Google to make an offer to settle "in the next few days." Otherwise, the agency is expected to file a formal complaint.

According to Bloomberg, the sides have been negotiating for about two weeks. So far, Google has yet to propose a remedy for the agency's concerns. The FTC has been investigating Google … Read more

Apple has reportedly negotiated a deal with European regulators that will help the company avoid litigation for potential antitrust violations while also enabling Amazon to offer lower prices than offered at Apple's iBookstore.

Reuters reports that EU regulators are preparing to accept the offer presented by Apple and four top book publishers: News Corp unit HarperCollins, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Livre, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, the owner of German company Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster, owned by CBS, parent company of CNET.

Apple's antitrust issues involving e-books began in the United States last spring. The U.S. government … Read more

Technology topics can mark a rare bipartisan area of political agreement: Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama say they would make cybersecurity a priority, and both like to talk up government funding of basic research.

If you look a bit more closely, however, differences emerge. They're perhaps most marked over federal regulation, where the two major parties have long-standing disagreements, but also exist on topics like WikiLeaks, copyright legislation, and whether to levy a new tax on broadband providers.

Keep reading for CNET's 2012 Tech Voters' Guide, in which we highlight where the four candidates -- we've … Read more

The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has formally recommended that a lawsuit be brought against Google for anti-competitive practices stemming from its technology licensing practices, Bloomberg reported.

A majority of the agency's five commissioners want to bring a suit, Bloomberg said, citing four people familiar with the matter. No decision is expected until after the presidential election next week.

In June, the FTC began requesting information from Microsoft and Apple about Google's willingness to license technology under patents necessary for 3G wireless, Wi-Fi, and video streaming. These are known as "standard-essential patents," and the FTC … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- It's not certain that Google will face a federal antitrust lawsuit by year's end. But if that happens, it seems likely to follow an outline sketched by Thomas Barnett, a Washington, D.C., lawyer on the payroll of Google's competitors.

Barnett laid out his arguments during a presentation here last night: Google is unfairly prioritizing its own services such as flight search over those offered by rivals such as Expedia, and it's unfairly incorporating reviews from sites like Yelp without asking for permission.

"They systematically reinforce their dominance in search and search … Read more

European antitrust regulators have sent Microsoft a list of objections, charging the software giant with breaching its previous commitment to offer Windows users a choice of Internet browsers.

The formal statement of objections sent to Microsoft today outlines how the company failed to offer a "browser choice" screen to millions of Windows users, which it had agreed to do under a legally binding 2009 settlement with the European Commission.

The Commission said in a statement that it "takes the preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to roll out the browser choice screen with its Windows 7 Service … Read more

Google is considering a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over the agency's claim that the search giant violated antitrust law when it didn't grant patent licenses to some of its mobile competitors, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

An unnamed source told the Journal that Google is weighing whether or not it should settle.

When asked for comment on a possible settlement, a Google spokeswoman said only:

"We take our commitments to license on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms very seriously and are happy to answer any questions [from the FTC]."

CNET has contacted the … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Few Silicon Valley companies have ever embraced a political party as passionately as Google has. Its executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has been described as a "kind of guru" to President Obama's campaign manager, and Google employees emerged as the No. 2 donor to the Democratic National Committee in the last election.

That love affair has now become a bit one-sided. Obama's pick to run the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz, a Democrat and former aide to Democratic senators, has been carefully preparing a legal assault on the search company.

Leibowitz took the unusual … Read more