Authors United, a trade guild representing 500 authors, submitted a formal request to the Department of Justice seeking an investigation into Amazon, accusing the online retailer of violating antitrust laws. The guild alleges Amazon is a monopoly responsible for price fixing. However, that might not be enough to prosecute Amazon, as Fortune points out:
But the more important point is that simply having a monopoly (in the sense of having a dominant share of a discrete market) isn’t a breach of U.S. antitrust law, although most people seem to believe that it is—or that it should be. What’s illegal is using that monopoly to stifle competition. And not just to stifle competition, but to do so in a way that makes things worse for consumers.
