Almost any behavior by a company to outdo its competitors can be described as anti competitive, but not all forms are illegal. Straight from the wikipedia page:
> Anti-competitive practices are commonly only deemed illegal when the practice results in a substantial dampening in competition, hence why for a firm to be punished for any form of anti-competitive behaviour they generally need to be a monopoly or a dominant firm in a duopoly or oligopoly who has significant influence over the market.
Since there are many auth providers (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OAuth_providers) in the market, the takeover of auth0 by okta is not a problem for "the market". It is therefore up to the shareholders of auth0 to sell their shares or not and clearly they chose to cash out instead of gambling that they could continue to out-execute okta and their other competitors.
I imagine the parent is questioning why the definition for "a substantial dampening in competition" is so strict. To me it seems that they are claiming that this clearly constitutes a substantial dampening in competition, and are thus questioning why it is not illegal.
Clearly, I do not know. Having used both, I do realize their target markets are somewhat separated as is pointed out in the linked article as well. I am dubious on the expansion of Okta's pricing power as a result of this acquisition, but I do not really have the kind of data I would need to be able accurately gauge that.
The list of companies that offer OAuth is not a list of competitors to the service AuthO provides. It's a confusion that the latter has encouraged to draft on the former's coattails.
The assumption you're making is that they have mature offerings because they are big names. Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have excellent full-featured offerings in every sector they've ever dabbled in? They've never made a bad or neglected product?
This is exactly the problem, the assumption that huge conglomerate juggernauts hoovering up or invading every sector is adequate or healthy competition.
Also that list seems to be very iffy at listing actual competitors to the Auth0 product offering. Much of it looks like services that use OAuth integration for access to their proprietary platform, not necessarily a dev-focused blank canvas for SSO/CIAM integration within your own app. Many specificly list OIDC as No. The list doesn't even have Auth0 on it.
> Anti-competitive practices are commonly only deemed illegal when the practice results in a substantial dampening in competition, hence why for a firm to be punished for any form of anti-competitive behaviour they generally need to be a monopoly or a dominant firm in a duopoly or oligopoly who has significant influence over the market.
Since there are many auth providers (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OAuth_providers) in the market, the takeover of auth0 by okta is not a problem for "the market". It is therefore up to the shareholders of auth0 to sell their shares or not and clearly they chose to cash out instead of gambling that they could continue to out-execute okta and their other competitors.