Last week former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing that Europe’s antitrust regime is “stronger” than America’s. But, as Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim recently said, “I don’t measure the antitrust division’s success by the fines or convictions we get or how many cases in litigation we bring. […]
Yesterday, Luigi Zingales defended the EC’s fine of Google’s Android arguing the absence of similar enforcement have raised cell phone costs for consumers. Below are three issues with Zingales’ defense, but more broadly Zingales fails to mention 1) Android is free and operators were always able to pre-install competing apps and 2) the U.S. tech […]
In reaction to the European Commission’s Android decision, a chorus of people sounded the alarm, highlighting the choice, competition, and innovation Android has brought to the market and the negative impacts this decision will have on phone makers, developers, and consumers. It’s also important to remember the FTC conducted a multi-year investigation into these allegations, […]
The EC is expected to fine Google’s Android, a free and open software. As NYT’s Farhad Manjoo wrote in 2016, “If Google’s grand plan really is to keep rivals off Android phones, it sure is doing a poor job of it.” The EC’s analysis curiously concludes Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are not competitors. What’s […]
In a recent paper, former FTC chair Timothy J. Muris and former FTC general counsel Jonathan Nuechterlein analyzed tech critics’ arguments against leading tech services within the context of backlash against the leading grocery chain A&P eighty years ago. After vertically integrating, the grocery store chain was once called the “Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart.” Muris and […]
As noted by the Wall Street Journal’s Alexandra Bruell in “AT&T’s Ambitious Plan To Take On Facebook And Google For Ad Dollars,” AT&T will become a major force in the advertising sector, having the ability to sell more targeted advertisements alongside video content. Bruell explains that AT&T could show “a young family in New Jersey […]
On Friday, AEI scholar Dr. Mark Jamison asked, “When did making customers happy become a reason for regulation or breakup?” A response to Christopher Mims’ Wall Street Journal column from earlier, Jamison argued tech is defined by consumer choice and said, “Whether this freedom of choice results in market share growth or market share declines, […]
The latest issue of The Economist features an article that blames America’s leading tech services for allegedly quashing tech start-ups. The piece misses the mark in five key ways: 1. Investment in the sector is at a 20-year high, driving 57 startups to unicorn status last year — but only one in Europe. A World […]
This week, Kleiner Perkins’ Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends presentation, which stands in stark contrast to much of the tech discussion in Washington and among self-interested VCs. The 295-slide deck delves into a number of topics, but can best be summarized by slide 43: Robust R&D and industry investment, lower consumer prices, dynamic […]
On the heels of 60 Minutes’ one-sided segment on competition in the tech sector, DOJ Antitrust Division leader Makan Delrahim noted, “The goal of the antitrust laws is to protect competition, not competitors.” A few highlights from his speech: “I don’t endorse that view,” said Delrahim on critics’ assertions that antitrust is unequipped to address […]
Hostility to innovation and technology diminishes the incredible Internet-enabled opportunities that leading tech services provide: empowering consumers, driving prices down and increasing choice, and providing platforms to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. It has given us a golden era of entertainment, knowledge, and everything from fashion startups, to booming mom and pop stores, to the latest app.
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