Just How Dangerous Is A Giant Comcast?

[onehandle]

It's been more than 100 years since the U.S. Supreme Court determined that one of the biggest companies in the world, Standard Oil, was an illegal monopoly and would have to be broken apart.

The size of the company didn't automatically violate antitrust law, the court ruled. Rather, it was the way it wielded that size that was a problem. The oil behemoth forced railroads to slash prices and agree to preferential deals to ship its products, driving smaller competitors out of business. Standard Oil came to control 90 percent of U.S. oil production through these methods, and the court determined that this led to higher prices and less oil, harming the overall market.

The antitrust laws the court used to decide the century-old case will be tested again in coming months, as regulators take a close look at Comcast's $45 billion offer to acquire its smaller rival Time Warner Cable. The deal would make Comcast, the largest cable company in the country, even bigger. The new communications giant would also control broadcast and cable television networks, movie studios and theme parks that Comcast has swept up in past acquisitions.

"It just creates this massive player -- this one entity that sits at the crossroads of everything," Michael Weinberg, a vice president at Public Knowledge, said in an interview last week. "They don't just dabble in it. They dominate it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/comcast-time-warner-deal_n_4816651.html