To protect its valuable Windows monopoly against such potential competitive threats, and to extend its operating system monopoly into other software markets, Microsoft has engaged in a series of anticompetitive activities.

The legislation does not address all consumer problems with cable rates, service or anticompetitive activities.

The FTC had alleged the acquisitions represented anticompetitive activities.

Neither Europe nor Japan have ever seen a comparable effort to break up a large company, though European regulators have become much more aggressive about imposing big fines on companies for anticompetitive activities.

In January 2003, Solt-Nielsen S.A. voluntarily entered The United States Department of Justice amnesty program, amid claims of anticompetitive activity and industry collusion.

Under the Campbell bill, physicians would be allowed to fix prices and engage in other anticompetitive activities that would be illegal elsewhere in the economy.

But as the dominant producer, Microsoft and its business practices are watched most closely for possible anticompetitive activity.

It filed the antitrust case in May 1998 after concluding that Microsoft had violated the terms of an earlier consent decree meant to keep the company from engaging in anticompetitive activity.

The Government's original complaint, filed in May 1998, charged that Microsoft was "engaged in a series of anticompetitive activities."

Only an affirmative decision by the state itself, acting in its sovereign capacity, and with active supervision, can immunize otherwise anticompetitive activity.