The House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Antitrust hearing Tuesday examined the relationship between leading tech services and news publishers, with testimony from industry and media representatives. Despite the rhetoric, there is no denying that leading tech services provide benefits to users, publishers, and consumers. Highlights from the subcommittee hearing and experts below: Matt Schruers, Vice President […]

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Ahead of the House Judiciary hearing today, “Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 1: The Free and Diverse Press,” competition expert Matthew Lane wrote for the Disruptive Competition Project on experts’ criticism of antitrust immunities for the news industry. His takeaways: 1. Antitrust exemptions don’t benefit consumers or the small businesses they’re intended to save, […]

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Martin Casado and Peter Lauten of the well-respected venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz recently made the case that simply collecting data is not a sustainable approach to staying ahead in the tech sector, an analysis echoed by other experts who highlight that data does not have inherent value. Rather, experts argue, it’s the effective utilization […]

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This week, the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center hosted its annual Antitrust and Competition Conference featuring top economists, lawyers, and thinkers focusing on competition and public policy. Over the course of two days, a few key themes emerged: —Current antitrust laws are equipped to deal with a changing economy and protect against politically driven excesses; […]

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Since Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’ op-ed in the New York Times, a chorus of experts have made it clear that breaking up tech companies is an extreme response that is bad for consumers and businesses alike. These experts counter Hughes with three key points: —Tech companies face a highly competitive marketplace that is changing rapidly; […]

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Last week, the Department of Justice hosted a workshop to discuss competition in television and digital advertising. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim kicked off the workshop with a keynote speech, in which he pointed out that “ad-supported business models bring goods and services to customers who would otherwise be priced out” and “studies […]

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Last week, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roger Alford spoke to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan on antitrust policy and the history of cooperation between Japan and the United States with regard to competition enforcement. Notably, Deputy AAG Alford pointed out that “if a firm becomes successful by making products or services that consumers […]

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Calls to break up today’s top tech companies rely on a flawed assumption that the tech sector is static. As a post in Truth on the Market points out, nearly every prediction of a company as an “unassailable monopoly” has been wrong: Palm, AOL, MySpace, Barnes & Noble, and Blockbuster were all deemed unstoppable at […]

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Yesterday, Penn Law professor and antitrust expert Herbert Hovenkamp published an opinion in The Regulatory Review addressing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent call for the “break up” of leading tech services. As Hovenkamp notes, “Senator Warren’s proposals seek to protect older technologies at the expense of consumers and workers.” More on his arguments below. Monopolies are […]

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Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) unveiled a proposal to “break up Big Tech.” Her proposal has been met with swift criticism from startup investors, experts, academics, and tech industry influencers saying that the proposal would: —Do more harm than good; —Stifle competition and set arbitrary thresholds; —Lead to increased prices; —And not solve the issues […]

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