Hi Iceshark, Justice Department brief seems to be that Visa and Mastercard are both offered by same group of banks (they didn't say cartel, guess they didn't want bad puns - - cardel, get it?) and that these banks pressure merchants that accept Visa and Mastercard not to accept other cards, e.g., American Express, Discover, etc. [Both claims true, I think.]
They extrapolate from these facts the following bad effects for consumers: lack of competition causes less credit available, SmartCard technology delayed for decade, development of secure internet transaction technology delayed. [I would say credit is far too available, and point to people charging stocks, even at margin, on credit cards, and bail bonds, and so on. I have handled the occasional bankruptcy, and a lot of divorces, and I know that many American consumers simply don't take credit card debt seriously; of course, many do. Also, re: SmartCards and internet transactions, my understanding is that the real holdup is development of encryption technology, which can be laid at US government's doorstep, for good or ill.]
Reno and other lawyer, Klein?, seemed pretty excited. My take on their body language, they know this is going to be big, which is what really attracted my attention.
I think Reuters will post something on the announcement soon, Yahoo had a headline not long ago.
Hope I can post this, I keep "freaking out" the web server. "Bummer, man."
CobaltBlue |
