Do consumers have extra “consumer rights” in additional to individual rights? No. One does not gain or lose rights by membership in any group. One does not lose one’s rights when one becomes a producer; one does not gain rights by becoming a consumer.
The only right the consumer has is the freedom to refuse or accept what producers offer them. Similarly, the producer has no right to force consumers to support his business and purchase his goods and services. The consumer has no right to force the producer to sell something, no more than the producer has the right to force the consumer to buy something. Only when the two voluntarily agree does an exchange (trade) take place. Neither party must make a deal if they do not like their terms, they are free to go elsewhere.
It is the consumer that sets the terms of how his money is traded, and it is the producer that set the terms on how his good or service is traded. The producer’s job is not to serve the consumer’s interests, no more than it is the consumer’s job to serve the producer’s interests, both must serve their interests. It is only when their interests coincide that trade — a voluntary exchange of value for value — takes place.
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How does one determine if a given action is anti-competitive or not? As a free-market is the application of the principle of individual rights to the economic sphere of production and trade; it is the principle of rights that determine if any action is anti-competitive or not. If no rights are violated, then neither is freedom of competition. Free-competition only has a single requirement: the protection of individual rights by the banishment of physical force (including fraud) from all relationships.
Do individuals lose their rights when they enter business? One’s rights do not disappear when one becomes businessmen as rights are inalienable. One does not gain/lose rights by being poor; one does not lose/gain them by becoming rich. Under the law of capitalism, all men are to be held equal in rights: what they choose to do with their rights determines their fate (economic position).