WSJ Scoffs at Ag Workshops
In an editorial Monday, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board goes after the Justice Department’s workshops on competition in agriculture, the first of which was held earlier this month in Iowa. “The occasion looked more like the Obama Administration’s latest dunk tank for business,” the paper writes. The piece paints the Antitrust Division as a pawn of DuPont in its legal battles with the dominant manufacturer of weed killer-resistant seeds, Monsanto. “DuPont has filed an antitrust suit against Monsanto over its dominance of a sliver of the soybean market, and the company hopes Mr. [Eric] Holder’s trustbusters will grant it success where the market has not.”
Microsoft Behind Google Complaints? Apple’s Mobile Plans
On the Google front, online tech publication The Register looks at the antitrust complaints raised by U.K. comparison shopping Web site Foundem and decides they have merit. It’s not just Microsoft pulling the strings, the piece argues: “The Raffs wrote every word of their FCC filing, and they penned the meat of the EU complaint…”
“Substantial sections are basically us explaining our story and going through the Universal Search data,” Shivaun Raff, founder of Foundem, tells The Register. “That comprises a majority of the filing, and that we wrote.”
On Friday, MediaPost reported on Apple’s potential plans in mobile advertising. “Apple is preparing to announce its ‘next big thing’ — a new personalized, mobile advertising system that could well be called the ‘iAd’,” according to the publication. Apple bought mobile ad company Quattro in January for $300 million; Google’s $750 million purchase of rival AdMob is currently being reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. Any Apple push into the mobile ad market probably lets Google’s lawyers breathe a little easier.
Ten House lawmakers last week urged the FTC to investigate privacy complaints about Google’s new social networking service, Buzz.
DOJ Agrees With DOT on US Airways/Delta Deal
The Dallas Morning News reported on Friday that the Justice Department backed the Transportation Department in asking US Airways and Delta Airlines to give up take off and landing slots at LaGuardia and Washington National airports in order to win approval for a proposed deal.
No Extra Time to Complain About Comcast-NBC
On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission rejected a bid by consumer groups to push back the deadline for comments on the Comcast-NBC deal.
