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Amazon’s Private Labels Don’t Threaten Competition
A recent Wall Street Journal article raises concerns about Amazon’s generics offerings and the online retailer’s business practices surrounding diaper sales. In evaluating…
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Facebook Antitrust Suits Disregard Consumer Welfare
Today the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 state attorneys general announced antitrust suits against Facebook, asserting the social media company’s acquisitions of…
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On Online Speech, Sasse Stands Alone
There was an almost total lack of skepticism of expanding government regulation of online content moderation at yesterday’s Senate hearing with the CEOs of…
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Biden Tech Policy Preview
Joe Biden has been declared the president-elect (I’m pretty sure). Here’s what a Biden administration and a (presumably) divided Congress might mean for tech issues.
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SAFE DATA Act a Risk for Consumers
Republican members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently introduced the SAFE DATA Act. While the bill includes much needed federal preemption of state privacy laws,…
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Don’t Panic Over Ad Tech
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an antitrust hearing on September 15 to examine Google’s 90 percent market share in online advertising. Senators who would…
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No Market Failure, No New Regulations
The U.S. Senate is about to consider federally regulating transportation network companies (TNCs) for the first time. But proof of market failure should always be…
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INFORM Me When It’s Over
Among other depressing developments, 2020 saw the introduction of the Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act (INFORM) in both houses…
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Tech Antitrust Hearing as Political Theater
Large, innovative tech companies have been invaluable during the COVID-19 crisis, helping to ease the burden of millions of Americans and businesses under quarantine. But…
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Antitrust Tech Hearing Unlikely to Prove Useful
Monday’s upcoming House Antitrust Subcommittee hearing featuring CEOs from Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple may turn out to have very little to do with antitrust.
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Is Apple a Bad Antitrust Apple?
The European Union announced last week that it is pursuing two antitrust probes against the tech giant. EU authorities are investigating whether Apple violated European…
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Calls to “Reform” Section 230 of Communications Decency Act Are Misguided—and Thankfully Unlikely to Succeed
This week, four U.S. Senators asked the FCC to “take a fresh look at Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act .” Real changes…
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Executive Order on Social Media Threatens Property Rights and Free Speech
Today’s Executive Order on Section 230 liability protections for online platforms violates the First Amendment and property rights of social media companies, contradicts the most…
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Presidential Panel on Social Media Bias Misfires
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering forming a panel to investigate charges of discrimination against right-leaning users and…
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Antitrust Investigation of Amazon Won’t Benefit Consumers
Launching another antitrust investigation into Amazon won’t benefit consumers. The U.S. antitrust law standard is consumer harm. To stretch antitrust investigations to include data, privacy,…
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Market Dynamics Will Force Zoom to Reform Faster and More effectively than Government Regulation
The videoconferencing service Zoom recently ran into some privacy concerns with leaked videos and hacked online meetings. Reaction has been swift and flawed from many…
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On Balance, We’re All Better Off With Big Tech and Big Telecom During a Crisis
Thanks to the novel Coronavirus, the U.S. economy has come to an unprecedented halt and the country’s death toll stands at more than 20,000. Amid…
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Antitrust Policy #NeverNeeded and Dangerous in a Crisis
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission will now allow some collaboration between companies to address the corona virus health threat. They also warned a…
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Regulatory Restraint, Full Throttle
Members of Congress pursuing compromise or bipartisan net neutrality legislation should think twice about regulating away certain practices as a priori harmful. Among the greatest…
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Need for More Wireless Spectrum Will Persist beyond COVID-19 Crisis with Introduction of 5G Technology
Last week, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T and US Cellular all asked the FCC for temporary access to additional spectrum to accommodate the recent increased demand for…
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Federal Court Rightly Affirms Online Platforms’ First Amendment Rights
This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, “despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a publicfacing platform, it remains a private forum,…
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Amazon Documentary Shows How Consumers Benefit
PBS’s Frontline aired its documentary, “Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos,” last night. While the tone of the piece was markedly suspicious,…
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Proposed iHeart Media Acquisition Threatened by Antitrust Regulation
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Liberty Media Corp, which already owns Sirius XM satellite radio, including its Pandora streaming service, and 33% of…
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California’s New Privacy Law Will Harm Consumers and Innovation
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) goes into effect January 1, 2020. The law requires companies of a certain size that collect information on customers…
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Department of Justice Wrong to Block Sabre Acquisition of Farelogix
On January 27th, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) will attempt to block travel technology company Sabre Corporation from purchasing communications protocol innovator Farelogix, Inc. This will be the…
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Government of Singapore Demonstrates Real Online Censorship
Singapore’s recent policing of online content provides an instructive example of the difference between private curating of material by platform owners and dangerous curtailing of…
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Twitter’s Ban on Political Ads Has No First Amendment Implications
Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced that the social media platform will ban all political advertising. This comes on the heels of Facebook’s recent announcement…
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States Making Predictable Grab for Revenue via Online Sales Taxes
Fallout from the 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair Supreme Court decision, which allowed remote sales tax collection from online purchases, has begun and The Wall Street Journal editorialized…
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Department of Justice Creates Frankenstein Imitation of Market Competition
The Department of Justice’s long-awaited merger approval for T-Mobile and Sprint is good news for consumers on balance, but the conditions required for the agency’s blessing are…
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State Officials, Department of Justice Should Green-Light Sprint-T-Mobile Merger
Yesterday’s filing by ten state attorneys general to block the proposed merger of wireless carriers T-Mobile and Sprint is the latest threat to the innovations…