Technology Companies Investigated for Anti-Trust Violation

Many technology companies including Google Inc., Intel Corp., International Business Machines Corp., Apple Inc., and InterActive Corp., are being investigated for violating an anti-trust law. The argument is that these companies hiring practices are violating part of the anti-trust law. The issue is that these companies have agreed not to recruit each others' employees so they do not have to pay computer engineers as much as they deserve. Anti-trust believe that "an agreement between competitors that holds down labor costs is as much a violation of anti-trust laws as an agreement to fix prices" reports Brent Kendall of the Wall Street Journal. Government officials have begun to ask companies about how they hire their employees. The technology companies response to these allegations is that their practices are lawful and they don't affect how much they pay their employees or job accessibility.

I believe that the technology companies are violating the anti-trust act. When companies agree to not recruit each others' employees, they are taking away from the competitiveness of the free market system of America. If there was no competition among companies then one company would be able to monopolize and no one would be able to start up a similar business. This practice is also unfair to the employees of the technology companies. The employees are being paid less and receiving less benefits as a consequence of these actions. These hiring practices also affect availability of jobs in the technology industry. Since no company will recruit another company's employee, no one will want to leave their job; therefore there will be less jobs available.

Microsoft is another technology company that has been accused of violating anti-trust laws and has been brought to trial by 19 different states as well as the U.S. Justice Department. The verdict was made by Judge Penfield Jackson who is also expected to decide on Microsoft's remedies by this summer.

It will be interesting to see whether or not other companies will be brought to trial and how the U.S. Justice Department handles this case. It may be difficult to obtain evidence against these companies which is why the other companies have not undergone an official investigation yet. However, I believe that these companies should be investigated because they are breaking the law.