Last Friday, MLex reported Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim 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. I define US antitrust law’s success as the fact that we have these innovators. We have the Googles and the Facebooks and the […]
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, […]
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 […]
Last week, tech analyst and author of the Stratechery newsletter Ben Thompson responded to 60 Minutes’ report on Google and competition policy. Thompson’s piece pointed out not only the various biases of the segment, but the incoherence of Yelp’s chief argument against Google as well. Some key takeaways are below. As Thompson notes, 60 Minutes’ […]
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 […]
This evening, 60 Minutes will air a segment focusing on Google’s critics, who say the company has “stifled competition,” and Europe’s Margrethe Vestager, an “antitrust enforcer who is taking action.” We’ve seen others recycle old arguments pushed by competitors of leading tech services in the past. So before you watch, below are five things you […]
Tech critics have repeatedly pointed to “network effects” as one reason to rethink antitrust enforcement. However, in her latest for the American Bar Association’s quarterly journal Antitrust, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and antitrust expert Catherine Tucker explains that network effects “are not the guarantor of market dominance that antitrust analysts had initially feared” — […]
Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division Roger Alford spoke in Dusseldorf Tuesday on the public interest standard’s problematic effect on competition enforcement. Like Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, recently noted, Alford focused on the careful approach of the consumer welfare standard versus the broad, easily-biased public […]
Daniel Crane, a University of Michigan law professor who focuses and has written six books and more than 60 articles on antitrust policy, recently posed four key questions to those who don’t believe current antitrust law is capable of addressing any competition concerns in the 21st century economy, the so-called Neo-Brandeisians. Highlights below: 1. Is […]
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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