THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT OF BUSINESS - Essay Example

Monopoly may have negative effects to the consumers and even to the economy of a given country. There have been controversies on monopolistic business practices especially on large companies that dominate the market such as Google Company. Owing to the negative impacts of monopolistic business practices, monopoly laws have undergone changes over the past years in the American constitution. The first monopoly law in the United States to be enacted was the Sherman antitrust act in 1890. The law was passed to help cub the sky rocketing prices that were being set by the monopolistic businesses (Washington State Office of The Attorney General, web).

This was a reaction to the public outcry for measures to be put in place to control prices of services and goods. The congress enacted additional two antitrust laws in 1914, which were federal commission trade act and the Clayton antitrust act. The federal trade commission act gave the federal trade commission authority to enforce the antitrust laws whereas the Clayton antitrust act was meant to strengthen the antitrust laws. The Clayton act undergone several amendments. The Robinson pitman act of 1936 was the first amendment that introduced the ban to certain business disciplinatory conduct.

The Hart Scot Rodin act 1976 was another amendment that required businesses merging to notify the federal government (Washington State Office of The Attorney General, web). Moreover, most states have enacted various antitrust laws over the past years. Google is a company that has been in the technology market for quite some time now being one of the most reliable in providing services in the information technology. Google offers a variety of services and products to its customers and has been improving over the past years posing a threat to other similar businesses in the market.

Google as a company has its operations across the globe and most people are happy with the kind of services offered by the company. Google dominates the search engine market in the united state by 67% and above 90% in the United Kingdom. With such an enormous market dominance, comes great responsibilities which when not properly taken care of, the company may be accused of monopoly. Over the past few years, there have been controversies that the company is engaging in monopolistic business practices while going about their business.

Arguably, this will only depend on an individual’s perspective on monopolistic business practices and state laws on monopoly. In my opinion, Google Company is not a monopoly the reason being it has competitors in the market and it is the responsibility of a company to satisfy the needs of its customers. For instance, personally I prefer Google search engine to others because it is fast and effective in retrieving the information required. The fact that a customer opt for Google to provide services does not necessary implies that the company restricts trade.

The argument is rather simple; it is because of certain interests the consumers prefer one service provider to others. It is upon the competitors to up their game in the market to cope with the dynamic and competitive nature of today’s market in the information technology. In addition, this is the era of information technology overload and it is not wrong for a customer to prefer a specific option (Ferenstein, web). A business can