Gotta love a shitty repub SCOTUS. Its awesome.

  • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    It’s just another bullet point in a half century long problem.

    The FTC is an independent Federal anti-trust enforcement agency. After SCOTUS 1977 Continental TV v. GTE made the nuance of certain contact terms subjectively legal, allowing mergers likely in the interests of global competition, the FTC has been effectively neutered. The only significant action has been the breakup of the Bells in 1982 and some Microsoft anti-Netscape gibberish around 1999.

    The FTC has effectively lost every significant case it’s brought since about 1970. Consumers haven’t had any significant protections since 1982, more than forty years ago.

    • sunzu@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, it does seem like enforcement is a futile exercise that’s permitted to happen for performative purpose while nothing gets done.

      This sort of capture is pretty standard in other federal regulatory domains.

      You either regulate pro industry or you won’t regulate at all. There is really no solution being proposed or really this sort of things is not even knowledged in these circles since people are making careers.