The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust law enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The agency is headquartered in the Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington, DC.
Gregory Wayne Abbott is an American politician, attorney, and jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 50th attorney general of Texas from 2002 to 2015 and as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court from 1996 to 2001.
In contract law, a non-compete clause, restrictive covenant, or covenant not to compete (CNC), is a clause under which one party agrees not to enter into or start a similar profession or trade in competition against another party. In the labor market, these agreements prevent workers from freely moving across employers, and weaken the bargaining leverage of workers.
Microsoft has been involved in numerous high-profile legal matters that involved litigation over the history of the company, including cases against the United States, the European Union, and competitors.
Kickstarter, PBC is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of February 2023, Kickstarter has received US$7 billion in pledges from 21.7 million backers to fund 233,626 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, board games, technology, publishing, and food-related projects.
The Oatmeal is a webcomic and humor website created in 2009 by cartoonist Matthew Inman. It offers original comics, quizzes, and occasional articles. Inman has produced a series of Oatmeal books with content from the webcomic and previously unpublished material, related board games, and other merchandise. The website won the Eisner Award for Best Digital/Webcomic in 2014.
Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows people to solicit funds for an idea, charity, or start-up business. Indiegogo charges a 5% fee on contributions. This charge is in addition to Stripe credit card processing charges of 2,9% + $0.30 per transaction. Fifteen million people visit the site each month.
Defense Distributed is an online, open-source hardware and software organization that develops digital schematics of firearms in CAD files, or "wiki weapons", that may be downloaded from the Internet and used in 3D printing or CNC milling applications. Among the organization's goals is to develop and freely publish firearms-related design schematics that can be downloaded and reproduced by anyone with a 3D printer or milling machine, facilitating the popular production of homemade firearms.
Zortrax is a Polish manufacturer of 3D printers and filaments for SMB market and rapid prototyping for industries, including robotics and automation, architecture, industrial design, engineering, aviation, industrial automation. Zortrax machines work with dedicated software, firmware and filaments.
AstroPrint is a cloud platform and application marketplace designed for consumer 3D printing by 3DaGoGo Inc., a private San Diego–based technology company.
Skarp Technologies, Inc. is a US company based in Irvine, California. Co-founded by Morgan Gustavsson and Paul Binun, the company gained public attention in October 2015 when it launched a Kickstarter campaign to promote the Skarp Laser Razor. It gained more than 4 million dollars worth of pledges in less than three weeks. However, on October 12, the campaign was cancelled by Kickstarter, who alleged that Skarp acted in violation of their rules. A new Indiegogo campaign was launched within hours of the Kickstarter suspension, and it subsequently raised over $500,000 US with a claim that the device would be released to backers in March 2016. According to an update from Skarp in June 2019, the razor was still under development and had not entered production.
RealPage, Inc. is an American property management software company, owned by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo, and known for its algorithmic rent setting, which has been accused of antitrust violations and price fixing. Its services are used to manage more than 24 million housing units worldwide in multifamily, commercial, single-family, and vacation rentals.
Neptune Computer Inc., commonly known as Neptune, is a Canadian privately held consumer electronics and wearable technology company, founded in 2013 by Simon Tian in Montreal, Quebec, and currently based in Toronto. The company has raised around $7 million from private investors, and over $2 million from crowdfunding sources like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
Endless Mobile, Inc. is an American information technology company that develops the Linux-based operating system Endless OS and reference platform hardware for it. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, California, U.S. with an additional office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Crowd Supply is a crowdfunding platform based in Portland, Oregon. The platform has claimed "over twice the success rate of Kickstarter and Indiegogo", and partners with creators who use it, providing mentorship resembling a business incubator.
Ghost Gunner is an American desktop CNC mill manufactured in Austin, Texas. It specializes in the making of firearms as well as finishing 0%–80% receivers. It was launched in October 2014 by Cody Wilson and the founders of Defense Distributed.
Polymer80, Inc. was an American manufacturer of parts kits containing firearm parts including unfinished receivers used for making privately made firearms. The company was founded in 2013 by Loran Kelley Jr. and David Borges and was headquartered in Dayton, Nevada. Polymer80 received press coverage because of the use of their products in crimes involving so-called "ghost guns", which in specific cases has resulted in lawsuits being brought against the company. As of July 25th, 2024 Polymer80 ceased operations and began liquidating its assets.
United States v. Google LLC is an ongoing federal antitrust case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Google LLC on October 20, 2020. The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets, most notably on Android devices, as well as with Apple and mobile carriers.
