Earlier this week, the Open Markets Institute (OMI) released a data set illustrating concentration by industry, and David Leonhardt highlighted it in the New York Times‘ opinion section. While the data itself isn’t anything new – concentration in some sectors has been rising for decades and is not always inherently anti-competitive – the way Open […]
In a recent Wired piece, Tim Wu ignores economic and market realities in his call for regulation of leading tech services. Wu overlooks that the vibrancy of the tech industry is driven by the ongoing success of start-ups, relying on nostalgia instead of facts about the highly competitive modern technology market. Some research dispelling Wu’s […]
In case you missed the latest FTC hearings on competition and consumer welfare, we’ve amassed the 7 best highlights from experts. Quotes are below with the video linked. 1. Josh Wright, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School: Compared to the E.U., the U.S. relies on empirical evidence of actual harm, not suspicion over potential harm. […]
On October 3, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights will hold its hearing on “Oversight of the Enforcement of the Antitrust Laws” with DOJ Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim and FTC Chairman Joseph Simons. This hearing comes on the heels of new polling that indicates Republicans overwhelmingly […]
Ahead of today’s hearings that will cover tech platforms and political voice, it’s essential to note that plenty of social media, text, and voice applications exist, and consumers use multiple to communicate on a daily basis. They get news from a variety of on-and-offline sources. Choice and competition are hallmarks of the tech sector, with […]
Tim Wu wants to break up Facebook and other leading tech services, because “we’re in a time where we need to bring back the controls on bigness,” according to a recent Vergecast, summarized here. Wu’s case overlooks several critical issues. 1. Wu downplays existing competition among tech players (despite having hailed it as a solution […]
In his letter today to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) asked the FTC to look into Google’s search practices. However, the facts haven’t changed since the FTC closed a comprehensive antitrust investigation in 2013. —The FTC found Google’s search practices were pro-consumer, and today search is even more competitive, see our backgrounder […]
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. […]
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 […]
Last week, Martin Giles published a piece in the MIT Technology Review, “It’s Time To Rein In The Data Barons.” In making his case, Giles fails to note that consumers would have be paid $17,500 a year to give up search, $8,400 a year for maps, and more than $3,600 a year for social media. […]
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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