SAN FRANCISCO — Bazaarvoice Inc.’s acquisition of its main rival led to plummeting competition in the market for online product ratings and reviews, an expert for the U.S. Department of Justice testified Monday as the government wrapped up its antitrust case against the Austin-based software company.
UC-Berkeley professor Carl Shapiro, a government expert, calculated that Bazaarvoice’s 2012 purchase of PowerReviews gave the market a score of 4,590 on the scale government agencies use to measure market concentration. The DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission consider markets with scores above 2,500 on the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, or HHI, to be highly concentrated, said Shapiro, a former antitrust official and member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.
