All, A bunch of real estate brokers "simply discussing" (conspiring) to raise their fees (MLS Listing Commissions) at dinner could in fact be construed as price fixing, I agree. Authors of HTML, each working as *free agents*, and are in no way controlling or influencing the marketplace. They have both a need and a right to know the fair market value of their services. IANAL either, but there is a clear distinction between these two situations. Their customers always have a right to get price quotes from EDS' overseas offices.
Do a google on "union scale" "per hour" and see what you discover. I read the DOJ document previously cited, and it is fairly clear about the domain of market manipulation they are attempting to regulate. Government has both the power and responsibility to create and regulate markets. The idea behind anti-trust legislation is to regulate markets to the extent that *fair and open* commerce can occur. So if you want to be inflamed about something, consider being inflamed about the practice of using prison labor to run legitimate small operators out of businesses through sectioned predatory pricing practices. Like printing shops, small time electronics board shops... the list is enormous. I've seen some of the testimony on CSPAN. http://www.bizjournals.com/extraedge/washingtonbureau/archive/2002/11/04/bur eau2.html Here is the formula: o Maintain a rightous war on drugs o Bust a bunch of 21st century hippie potheads (Tommy Chong, for selling bongs) o Throw their a$$es in prisons which are operated by for-profit corporations (WhackANut) o Have them housed, fed and clothed at the taxpayer expense o Pay them less than minimum wage for running printing presses, help desks, etc. o Compel federal purchase contracts to buy from these operations o Force legitimate commercial operations out of business Marty -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Wright Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 6:43 AM To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list Subject: RE: [TriLUG] OT: Developer Rates Again, IANAL, but this is where I had read this previously.... >From http://www.hwg.org/resources/faqs/priceFAQ.html ... "Is it illegal to discuss pricing? The short answer: YES (at least in the U.S. where many of our members are). The U.S. law specifically makes discussion of pricing between competitors (all or some) a federal offense. According to either Marshall Kragen or Lewis Rose (both practicing lawyers), several brokers in DC were successfully prosecuted for simply discussing an increase of fees at a dinner meeting. When, where, or how doesn't matter. Any discussion of pricing by a group of people within the same industry is illegal in the U.S. The feds call it price fixing." And this is from a DOJ document at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/primer-ncu.htm <SNIP> -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
