[rlongstaff]

Hmm. Somewhat biased presentation in the article with use of the words "the latest in a growing number of competition investigations targeting American technology companies."

Gives the impression the EU is deliberately going after US companies when in fact the majority that are investigated for anti-competitive acts are European.

[mtgx]

It certainly seems most American media sites are reporting it in that way - despite the fact that China and South Korea have either penalized them already or are investigating them now, too.

Maybe it's a conspiracy to "go after American companies" from all of these regions. Or maybe Qualcomm did indeed do something bad.

[kuschku]

Indeed.

We all profit from having a free market, for that to be existing consumers need to have a choice; the market has to be either free of monopolies, or we have to make sure the monopoly on one market (say, web search) doesn’t quickly turn into a monopoly for other markets (say, mobile OS, web maps, etc), too.

[icebraining]

"We have to make sure there are no monopolies" (or that monopolies don't "spread") is a dangerous approach, since it leads to the politician's fallacy. It may not even be possible to keep a relatively free market while making sure of that.

The question to ask is: are these EU investigations effective at reducing the number and spread of monopolies? And if they aren't, what should we do?

Because looking at the Microsoft case, the effectiveness seems dubious.

[pdabbadabba]

Well, I think it just as strongly implies that American technology companies are increasingly engaging in illegal behavior. (Though this implication is no better then the one you've gotten from it.)