1.   Antitrust regulators use several yardsticks to decide whether a merger would hurt consumers or concentrate market power in too few hands.

2.   All these actions, according to critics, add up to Microsoft restricting competition in the market, inhibiting innovation and ultimately hurting the consumer.

3.   Broadcasters, for their part, said that moving the spectrum issue out of the telecommunications overhaul bill would threaten the future of their industry and hurt consumers.

4.   Broadcasters say that moving the spectrum issue out of the telecommunications overhaul bill would threaten the future of their industry and hurt consumers.

5.   But critics, including consumer groups and advocates for the poor, say the compact amounts to a legal cartel that has hurt consumers in other states.

6.   But executives at these companies warn that efforts to cap wholesale electricity prices or otherwise restrain them will curtail construction, hurting consumers in the long run.

7.   But opponents said it would encourage monopolies, hurting consumers.

8.   But regulators and consumers will be watching for signs that the loss of competition hurts consumers.

9.   But will it help or hurt consumers on Main Street, where the wallets and purses are a lot thinner?

10.   Clinton vetoed the one passed by the last Congress, saying it would hurt consumers.