[arin-ppml] Will the price per IP really be affected bythetransfer market introduced in 2009-1?

[Stephen Sprunk]

Kevin Kargel wrote:
>> And it also turns out that agreeing ahead of time how we'll all set pricing is against the law.  
>>     
>
> Yep, and that's why every gas station in town changes their price at the same hour of the same day to the same tenth of a cent.  But wait, that would be against the law..
>   

Price matching is legal; what is illegal is colluding in advance to set 
prices at a particular level.

In many states, it is illegal for gas stations to change their prices 
more than once per day.  So, what happens is that each morning in any 
given locale (here, it's at each major intersection where there will be 
2-4 gas stations on the corners) one manager will go out and put up his 
price for the day, and the other manager(s) will immediately respond by 
setting their price the same or one cent less.  That is perfectly legal; 
it may _look_ like collusion to an uninformed observer, but it isn't 
collusion if they don't meet ahead of time to discuss what they're going 
to do, only respond to each others' public actions.

S

-- 
Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 3241 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
URL: <https://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml/attachments/20090515/a4be6af1/attachment.bin>