'''Collusion''' refers to private conversations, agreements, and activities which are protected by privacy rights. It should not be confused with [[conspiracy]], which are conversations, agreements and activities between two or more individuals with the intent to violate [[law]].
In America, anti-Trust collusion has been illegal since the early [[populist]] movement.
[[John D. Rockefeller]] was notorious for colluding with railroads to deny competitors transport of their product,<ref>In other words, he would pay railroads more, above market price, to transport his oil and deny service to smaller competitors. The volume of his product allowed him to operate on a slim profit margin. Even if a smaller competitor could pay the artificial higher transport fees created by Rockefeller's collusion with the railroads, it wiped out their profit. Ultimately, the smaller companies had to sell out to Rockefeller, making Standard Oil even bigger and more monopolistic. Once all competition is eliminated, Rockefeller than could raise prices and gouge the public at will.</ref> and drive mom n' pop oil producers out of business. He was accused of unfair trade practices. Rockefeller held most all of his assets in [[Trust]], making himself both the [[grantor]] and [[beneficiary]]. For this, a body of [[Antitrust]] law grew up.
Rockefeller became so rich in the oil businesss, and so dominant as a monopoly, he began buying up businesses outside the oil industry. Having little knowledge how some of the businesses operated, and fearful the managers might be stealing ftom from him, Rockefeller held these entities in Trust for his own benefit. Soon Rockefeller owned every business in whole towns, held in Trust and managed by teams of lawyers and accountant will little practical knowledge how the business they oversaw actually functioned.
This state of affairs created tremendous public resentment. People felt they were being denied the opportunity to compete. Investigative journalist Ida Tarbell asserted that Rockefeller gained monopoly control by collusion and unfair practices. A [[populist]] movement was spawned of Trust Busters running for Congress, vowing support for the little guy - small business, and to end unfair trade practices. [[Marxist]]s piggybacked on this anti-big business sentiment with [[class warfare]].
==Business collusion==
Collusion in business is usually an agreement among members of a [[cartel]] in a particular industry not to compete in order to create artificial disincentives for new competitors,<ref>Or [[Barriers to entry]] into a market or industry.</ref> although it can also be collusion between industriescan also occur, such as collusion between manufactures and railroads as in the case of Standard Oil to limit competition, or between internet service platforms and news organizations to limit competition and deny [[InfoWars]] market access. In both examples, the public is ill-served by greedy corporate monopolies.
Typically, In cartel collusion occurs when , a group of large competitors, a cartel, divvy up [[market]] share among themselves to gain [[monopoly]] control,<ref>A cartel with monopoly control is sometimes referred to as an [[oligopoly]].</ref> and manipulate prices and profitability to make it impossible for a start-up competitor to gain market access. Thus, the public is denied the benefits of lower prices and improvements that come with time. It can also be called "price rigging" or "unfair competition."<ref>Government sometimes has an incentive to favor Big Business and monopolistic trade practices because of the larger taxes tax revenues they create, and their ability to produce larger tax revenues faster in a new, unregulated industry. This tendency by the government to encourage unfair trade practices historically has been countered by populist movements.<br>This incentive only became bigger with passage of the Corporate Income Tax, a so-called "Progressive reform," that came after passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.</ref>
===Lobbying===
When the government grants protection or assents to collusion and monopoly control it is a form of "[[corporate cronyism]]."
===Big Tech company collusionand media giants===
In August 2018 the large tech firms [[Apple]], [[Facebook]], [[Google]] and others, colluded, in the space of 12 hours, to deny [[InfoWars]] access to [[social media]]. InfoWars was a fast rising Media Production site surpassing the [[BBC]] and other large News and Media sites in viewership and market share in November 2016.<ref>https://www.infowars.com/infowars-surges-31-spots-in-media-site-rankings-in-one-month/</ref> It's official APP was ranked #4 in Apple's App Store, above Google News (#5), [[CNN]] (#6), [[Fox News]] (#7), [[Buzzfeed]] (# 10), The [[New York Times]] (#11), [[ABC]] (#19), and BBC (#26) at the time [[Silicon Valley]] tech giants colluded together to destroy it.<ref>https://www.infowars.com/infowars-official-app-jumps-to-number-4-dominates-cnn-nyt-abc/</ref>
This type of collusion is was intended to limit competition in media production, and for monopoly control of the marketplacenews information.
===OPEC===
===NFL owners===
[[Leftwing]] [[extremist]] [[Colin Kaepernick]] asked for [[arbitration]] alleging that [[NFL]] owners "colluded" to blacklist him after he violated league and franchise rules. Kaepernick had willfully violated the terms of his player [[contract]] and was terminated. Kaepernick refused to cooperate with management undrr the terms of contract to promote the game of [[football]] and the image of the league. In an interview with [[ESPN]], Kaepernick called [[America]] [[racist]], <ref>https://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernick-explains-protest-of-national-anthem</ref><ref>Kaepernick claimed people "have been murdered by the country they fought for, on our land," and refused to stand for the national anthem. https://www.espn.com/blog/san-francisco-49ers/post/_/id/18957/transcript-of-colin-kaepernicks-comments-about-sitting-during-national-anthem</ref> bringing disrepute and a public [[boycott]] upon the league. When Kaepernick refused to cooperate with [[San Fransisco]] 49ers' management in promotional affairsto stand during the national anthem, his contract was terminated.
For Kaepernick to win his arbitration, he'd have to prove 32 franchise owners met in secret snd and conspired to target him individually in violation of [[collective bargaining]] agreements, rather than exercising a standing agreement among owners and a league rule not to re-hire a player terminated from one member franchise for being uncooperative with management, refusing to participate in franchise and league promotions, and bringing public disrespect on the NFL and game of football.
==Political collusion==
===Hillary whitewash===
[[James Comey]] colluded at the [[White House]] all morning on May 16, 2016; Predident President Obama earlier had suggested the language, "careless" in a public statement earlier rather than criminal " negligence"which was Comey's finding.
In the That afternoon a group of FBI personnel colluded in [[Peter Strzok]]'s office to drop the [[felony|felonious]] charges finding of gross negligence against [[Hillary Clinton]], for which she faced 10 years in prisonif convicted, and substituted "careless" as [[President Obama]] had suggested.
===Media collusion===