Tying is the anti-competitive practice of requiring de facto or de jure the customer to purchase a certain package of goods together. It is implied in this that one or more components of the package are sold individually by other businesses as their primary product, and thereby this packaging would hurt their business. It is also implied that the company doing this packaging has a significantly large market share so that it would hurt the other companies who sell only single components. Anti-competitive practices are business practices that prevent and/or reduce competition in a market. ... De facto is a Latin expression that means in fact or in practice. It is commonly used as opposed to de jure (meaning by law) when referring to matters of law or governance or technique (such as standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without... De jure (in Classical Latin de iure) is an expression that means by law, as contrasted with de facto, which means in fact. The terms de jure and de facto are used like in principle and in practice when one is describing political situations. ...

Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.

Horizontal tying is the practice of requiring customers to pay for an unrelated product or service together with the desired one. For example, all of one company's toothbrushes come with the company's ice skates. Microsoft ties together Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express. Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT) headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. ... Microsoft Windows is a range of closed source proprietary commercial operating environments for personal computers and servers. ... Internet Explorer, abbreviated IE or MSIE, is a proprietary web browser made by Microsoft and currently available as part of Microsoft Windows. ... Outlook Express for Mac Microsoft Outlook Express is an email and news client bundled with operating systems and the Internet Explorer web browser by Microsoft, and also available as a no-charge download for the classic Apple Macintosh operating system (although not for the newer Mac OS X, where it...

Vertical tying is the practice of requiring customers to purchase related products or services from the same company. For example, a company's automobile only runs on its own proprietary gas and can only be serviced by its own dealers. Something proprietary is something exclusively owned by someone, often with connotations that it is exclusive and cannot be used by other parties without negotiations. ...

Tying may be the action of several companies, as well as the work of just one firm.

It was first made illegal in the United States by the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Sherman Antitrust Act,15 U.S.C. § 1, was the first government action to limit trust companies (A corporate front for a combination of firms or corporations who agree not to lower prices below a certain rate for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout a business...

See also

• Bundling (marketing)