[jhp123]

you have to wonder what sort of collusion isn't being uncovered. After all, when you catch someone doing something unethical, it is often the tip of the iceberg. It would be very easy for two tech execs to communicate privately and come to an agreement like "Stop investing in Bing and we'll stop investing in GSuite."

We've been through a long period of stagnation from big tech companies, often blamed on cultural problems in a maturing industry. What if the real story is a level of cartelisation far beyond anything revealed so far?

[SllX]

Not saying there isn't collusion in the Valley but a negotiated deal with a signed contract complete with paper trail and with both companies, employees and former employees admitting that such a deal exists even if they can't discuss the details when asked about it isn't exactly the definition of collusion. It's an agreement. In fact, if the alternative was that Apple goes to war with Amazon in court over the number of counterfeit Apple products Amazon was selling (or allowing third parties to sell through Amazon) and Apple can build a strong enough case for a court to take it, then a signed agreement before litigation can even begin is a positive outcome from a court's perspective because even if litigation did begin, the court would be spending some time encouraging the parties to negotiate a settlement rather than dragging this out when the court could be hearing other cases.

Collusion is illegal and typically done in secret because its illegal, like when Apple, Google, Pixar and some others (I forgot who else, Google it) were suppressing wages–that was collusion. Signing contracts and making deals with other Fortune 500 companies operating in the same sector, even for things that neither company would typically offer to anyone else, is not.