I’ve posted before about anti-competitive behaviour of companies, in particular Microsoft is generally accused of being anti-competitive no matter what they do. In my post I mentioned that I felt often it comes down to the reputation of a company to see how many of these dodgy tactics they get away with.

Apple is one that seems to get away with absolute murder! There have been rumblings about a company called Psystar producing Mac clones which can run OS X. Apple seem to have an EULA that outlaws anyone creating clones of a Mac effectively removing the opportunity for competition.

Way back Apple stopped the original Mac Clones by fixing Macs to the PowerPC platform and then buying the chip company therefore stopping the ability of others to create clones (Correction: Apple renegotiated licenses for Mac clones that the licensees weren’t willing to pay). Now that Macs use Intel (x86) chips again this opens up the market (Apple marketing always said PowerPC provided a much more powerful system than x86 but I digress).

Now OS X can theoretically be installed on other machines than those produced by Apple it seems any support for a legal bought copy installed on a clone is removed. What’s more the Apple’s software update is blocked!

Not much of a fuss is being made but I wonder if the same could be said if another not so loved company did the same?

My friend and colleague Mark Steadman posted on his blog last week about eBay Australia piloting a scheme to make PayPal the only payment method.

As he mentioned then it’s an obviously anti-competitive scheme but it seems to have blown up in eBay’s face more than expected.

Thousands of people are flocking a rival auction site called OZtion, people are signing petitions, eBay are taking down critical forum posts as quickly as they can and there have been many complaints to Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission.

Hopefully eBay will reassess their position swiftly. Power to the people!