[googlr29783]

Steve and Larry share their employees salaries with each other to avoid a bidding war over top talent.

Lucy finds out and orders Steve and Larry to stop doing that.

Now Steve shares salary data with Teddy and Teddy tells Steve what the market average is. Larry also shares salary data with Teddy and also learns what the market average is.

No collusion! But the effect is the same. That's why they earn the big bucks.

[simonh]

Knowing the price of a thing is how markets work. If I want to buy tomatoes and a friend tells me a shop down the road has them on special offer, that's not collusion.We're not artificially suppressing the price of tomatoes. Anyway companies already know this by just offering a given salary and seeing if they get decent applicants. If they're not getting enough good applicant, they just raise the offer if they think it's appropriate. Having said that the habit of companies suppressing info about salaries between employees should be fought.

[adamsmith143]

>If I want to buy tomatoes and a friend tells me a shop down the road has them on special offer, that's not collusion.We're not artificially suppressing the price of tomatoes.

You mixed up the analogy though. Rather it should be that tomato seller 1 talks to tomato seller 2 down the road and they agree to never charge less than x$ for 1 pound of tomatoes thus removing market forces and creating an artificial floor for tomato prices