The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services behemoth uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

The complaint filed Tuesday says Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network.

According to the DOJ’s complaint, 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions.

  • assaultpotato
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    9 hours ago

    I can’t remember a period of time with so many anti-trust and other consumer protection lawsuits from the FTC and DOJ.

    Shame we got to this state, but Biden admin is deeply based.

    • IHawkMike@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      The FTC actions at least are because of Lina Khan and we better protect her. The billionaires are actively trying to get Kamala to drop her.

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      That and the rise of the unions. It really feels like times in history we only learned about in school but never experienced before.

      • assaultpotato
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        8 hours ago

        Agreed. We’ve lost a lot of ground to the barons of the new world, but the swell of support for unions is a light in the darkness. As much as I have bad things to say about our society, I’m happy we live somewhere where we can push back without going to jail.

    • banshee@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I’m so glad to see some progress at last.

      On a side note, I’m not sure what your last sentence means. I keep seeing people use the word “based” but I refuse to look it up 😄.

      • assaultpotato
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        9 hours ago

        “Based” is pre-zoomer (Gen Z/Alpha) gamer slang for “great”, with a slight connotation of oppositional greatness.

        Original gamer use may include describing use of the N word for memes as “based” as its a counter-cultural thing that gamers saw as good. Nowadays it’s pretty “normie-core” and any time something upsets the status quo in a positive way that might make opposition upset, is based.

        For example, Dark Brandon, a reimagining of the “let’s go Brandon” MAGA meme to be a progressive, anti-MAGA meme used as kind of a soft middle-finger to the right-wing internet, was incredibly based.

        • banshee@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Thanks for the explanation. I’m in the Xennial cohort, and I never could develop an appreciation for gaming lexicons. I know every generation has their slang, but it does add some challenges with a broader audience.

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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      9 hours ago

      I’d be blaming Reaganomics more than Biden, because that’s where this shitstorm started.

      • assaultpotato
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        9 hours ago

        I think you misunderstood.

        1. Shame we have so many horrid companies with so much power.
        2. Biden’s admin is amazing because I’ve never seen so many pro-consumer cases get filed.

        Medicine price negotiations, antitrust lawsuits, price gouging lawsuits, unfair fee lawsuits, etc. Biden admin FTC+DOJ have more teeth than I’ve ever seen.

  • xmunk
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    9 hours ago

    The Americans are just jealous of our space age Canadian “Interac” technology… don’t share it though, they’ll steal our timbits!

    As a dualie I was amazed at how awesome Interac was when I moved up - no cost money transfers and easy to manage scheduled autopay was miles ahead of what America managed.