2k18 what's the worst enormous tech company?

Qualcomm has been in the running for this prize for many years.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-shook-down-the-cell-phone-industry-for-almost-20-years/

A couple of crazy bits (and I've experienced these in my job):

Qualcomm's patent licensing fees were calculated based on the value of the entire phone, not just the value of chips that embodied Qualcomm's patented technology.

This is why many manufacturers would use modules instead of designing the chips into their own board. The module vendor would pay a royalty based on the price of the module, and then the end-product company would buy the modem and wouldn't be subject to this ridiculous tax on their product. The modem companies would also provide their customers with indemnification against any potential suits from Qualcomm, but there was always a bit of uncertainty around that, given that Qualcomm's IP division was so aggressive.

The other one that was nuts?

patent licensing terms requiring customers to pay a royalty on every phone sold—not just phones that contained Qualcomm's wireless chips.

It's just incredible that they were able to get away with this for so long. I feel like there is another more investigative story to be written about the regulatory and political capture that Qualcomm must have done in order to keep this model rolling for 20 years.