information:extraction
Government intervention

Often, governments will try to intervene in uncompetitive markets to make them more competitive. Antitrust (US) or competition (elsewhere) laws were created to prevent powerful firms from using their economic power to artificially create the barriers to entry they need to protect their economic profits. This includes the use of predatory pricing toward smaller competitors. For example, in the United States, Microsoft Corporation was initially convicted of breaking Anti-Trust Law and engaging in anti-competitive behavior in order to form one such barrier in United States v. Microsoft; after a successful appeal on technical grounds, Microsoft agreed to a settlement with the Department of Justice in which they were faced with stringent oversight procedures and explicit requirements designed to prevent this predatory behaviour. With lower barriers, new firms can enter the market again, making the long run equilibrium more like that of a competitive industry, with no economic profit for firms.