FTC sues Intel for alleged monopoly abuse

Here we go, folks. FTC is suing Intel for what it sees to be "anticompetitive tactics." The FTC has been circling this debate since last year, but now it has followed in the steps of the EU, and the New York attorney general (but no longer a cash-flush AMD) in prosecuting the chip giant. The FTC claims, among other things, that Intel has abused its monopoly position to "[wage] a systematic campaign to shut out rivals' competing microchips by cutting off their access to the marketplace." Tough words. The FTC says that Intel messed with a compiler to cheat competitors out of performance gains, has "stifled innovation" and "harmed consumers." The damages the FTC is after are a bit less clear: mainly it wants to stop Intel from keeping out competition or building or modifying its own products to impair the performance of other products. We'll be diving into the implications of this as we find out more, but it looks like Christmas came early for NVIDIA.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]