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Feds probing tech giants: Apple, Google, Yahoo in the cross hairs
Stephen Withers
Thursday, 04 June 2009 03:56
The speculation revolved around products and services, such as Google's Android OS for smartphones vs Apple's iPhone.
But if the Washington Post is correct, we may have been looking at the wrong side of the equation. It appears the US Justice Department's investigation into possible collusion isn't in the context of the two companies' outputs, but rather their inputs - specifically, labour.
Citing anonymous sources, the Post says the suggestion is that some large US technology companies have negotiated the recruiting and hiring one another's employees - an unfair form of restraint of trade.
The companies under initial scrutiny are said to be Apple, Genentech, Google and Yahoo. The first three have overlapping directors: Google CEO Eric Schmidt is also on the Apple board, while Genentech chairman and CEO Arthur Levinson also sits on the boards of Apple and Google.
By coming to a secret agreement to avoid hiring each others' staff, companies limit their employees' job prospects. If Yahoo wouldn't hire a search engine specialist that's currently with Google, the only remaining big player is Microsoft.
Artificially restricting demand in this way would tend to depress salaries.
There have been some recent high-profile court cases in the last few years over the hiring of competitors' senior staff. Examples include Apple hiring IBMer Mark Papermaster, and Google hiring Microsofty Kai-Fu Lee.
It appears that the Justice Department and FTC investigations will run in parallel.
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