Contrary to its “do no evil” pledge, Google has used evil federal anti-trust law as leverage to force Microsoft to change Windows Vista to permit consumers to choose which desktop search program will be used. Shame on Google. On the other hand, Microsoft does not have clean hands—it’s attempting to use antitrust law to block Google’s acquisition of Double-Click.
Sometimes I wonder—what’s worse for the economy—patents, or antitrust law. But they are not all that different, are they: the agency that monopolizes the right to decide when force may be used gives companies the right to sue other companies for being too monopolistic—that is, A can sue B for competing too vigorously and successfully in the market; and with patents, the monopoly-state grants little monopolies to companies to give them the right to sue other companies for competing with them. The feds sure hate competition, don’t they?—in both senses. They don’t want anyone horning in on their racket; and they also don’t like the market competition of enterprises. And yet the result of anti-trust and patent law is endless money-wasting, lawyer-hiring legal bickering... “legal” competition that wastes resources and costs billions of dollars, a type of lose-lose competition that generates nothing but loss, unlike the real competition of the market which leads to gains for all.
