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Communications Daily – ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by Communications Daily in a story about the Supreme Court’s decision in . . .
Communications Daily – ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by Communications Daily in a story about the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA and the impact it could have on U.S. administrative law broadly. You can read full story (behind a subscriber firewall) here.
“Huge decision,” emailed Gus Hurwitz, professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law. “The big picture is that it shifts power from the executive back to the legislative, with a note from the Court reading ‘Dear Congress, do your damn job,'” he said. “Title II-based net neutrality rules are DOA,” he said. The opinion raises questions about how the FTC can use its unfair methods of competition (UMC) authority, he said: “The most useful gloss is probably that if an agency wants to reshape an important industry the authority and tools it uses need to be clearly delineated by Congress. That doesn’t bode well for the FTC using its UMC authority to go after big tech or longstanding and widespread business practices.”
CNBC – ICLE President Geoffrey Manne was quoted by CNBC in a piece about efforts at the Federal Communications Commission to invoke Title II to . . .
CNBC – ICLE President Geoffrey Manne was quoted by CNBC in a piece about efforts at the Federal Communications Commission to invoke Title II to regulate net neutrality. You can read the full piece here.
Geoffrey Manne, president of the International Center for Law & Economics, which has opposed Title II reclassification for ISPs, said social justice-centered arguments could have more resonance now. That could include minimal price regulation requiring ISPs to offer a low-cost tier of service, an outcome that, “I don’t think would be the end of the world,” Manne said.
TechMonitor – ICLE Director of Competition Policy Sam Bowman was quoted by TechMonitor in a story about Amazon’s €1.3billion fine by Italy’s antitrust regulator. The full story is . . .
TechMonitor – ICLE Director of Competition Policy Sam Bowman was quoted by TechMonitor in a story about Amazon’s €1.3billion fine by Italy’s antitrust regulator. The full story is available here.
But not everyone is convinced. Sam Bowman, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics think tank, says Amazon argues that FBA offers a more reliable service to consumers than other delivery options, and notes that there is no suggestion in the Italian ruling that consumers were harmed by Amazon’s behaviour. “It’s a philosophical question of whether Amazon has the right to prioritise services in this way if it wants to,” he says. “What this kind of ruling does is reduce Amazon’s role to a facilitator of the network between customers and businesses.” Bowman says the role of platforms like Amazon goes beyond that of an intermediary and argues they are useful for consumers who are not confident accessing digital markets. “They bring order to the chaos of the internet,” he says. “For a lot of people, navigating that chaos is very difficult, takes a lot of time and carries a lot of risk. The platform is not just a conduit, it applies rules and quasi-regulations on the market it creates. We hope those rules will benefit customers, and if not they will shop elsewhere. The logic of this decision is that Amazon does not have the right to apply its own rules, and is simply a downpipe between consumers and sellers.” …But Bowman believes the impact of the ruling – and the DMA – could be that platforms such as Amazon withdraw their own products from the European market and take a more neutral position. “Neutrality sounds quite appealing, but in terms of usability it may make things worse for consumers,” he says. “A platform like eBay is much more open and neutral than Amazon, but not necessarily better. I think a consequence [of the self-preferencing ban] will be the eBay-ification of a lot of tech platforms.” Bowman says this change could take some time, depending on how the final DMA takes shape. “At the moment the way it is written seems very prescriptive about what can and can’t be done. We don’t know if this will lead to companies changing what they do overnight, or whether they will continue as usual and wait to discover how the European commission interprets these rules through rulings or lawsuits.” Businesses using Amazon’s marketplace in the UK are likely to see fewer changes, Bowman says, as the country’s proposed legislation for regulating digital platforms is less prescriptive, focusing on outcomes rather than strict rules. “The UK approach is likely to be a lot softer, with the companies developing a relationship with the regulator,” he says. “I’m not convinced this will do much for competition, but the ambiguity means it is less likely to generate unsatisfactory outcomes where ‘good’ practices are banned because they don’t comply with the rules.”
But not everyone is convinced. Sam Bowman, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics think tank, says Amazon argues that FBA offers a more reliable service to consumers than other delivery options, and notes that there is no suggestion in the Italian ruling that consumers were harmed by Amazon’s behaviour. “It’s a philosophical question of whether Amazon has the right to prioritise services in this way if it wants to,” he says. “What this kind of ruling does is reduce Amazon’s role to a facilitator of the network between customers and businesses.”
Bowman says the role of platforms like Amazon goes beyond that of an intermediary and argues they are useful for consumers who are not confident accessing digital markets. “They bring order to the chaos of the internet,” he says. “For a lot of people, navigating that chaos is very difficult, takes a lot of time and carries a lot of risk. The platform is not just a conduit, it applies rules and quasi-regulations on the market it creates. We hope those rules will benefit customers, and if not they will shop elsewhere. The logic of this decision is that Amazon does not have the right to apply its own rules, and is simply a downpipe between consumers and sellers.”
…But Bowman believes the impact of the ruling – and the DMA – could be that platforms such as Amazon withdraw their own products from the European market and take a more neutral position. “Neutrality sounds quite appealing, but in terms of usability it may make things worse for consumers,” he says. “A platform like eBay is much more open and neutral than Amazon, but not necessarily better. I think a consequence [of the self-preferencing ban] will be the eBay-ification of a lot of tech platforms.”
Bowman says this change could take some time, depending on how the final DMA takes shape. “At the moment the way it is written seems very prescriptive about what can and can’t be done. We don’t know if this will lead to companies changing what they do overnight, or whether they will continue as usual and wait to discover how the European commission interprets these rules through rulings or lawsuits.”
Businesses using Amazon’s marketplace in the UK are likely to see fewer changes, Bowman says, as the country’s proposed legislation for regulating digital platforms is less prescriptive, focusing on outcomes rather than strict rules. “The UK approach is likely to be a lot softer, with the companies developing a relationship with the regulator,” he says. “I’m not convinced this will do much for competition, but the ambiguity means it is less likely to generate unsatisfactory outcomes where ‘good’ practices are banned because they don’t comply with the rules.”
Communications Daily – ICLE Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout was quoted by Communications Daily in a story about Acting Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The full . . .
Communications Daily – ICLE Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout was quoted by Communications Daily in a story about Acting Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel. The full story is available (behind a subscriber firewall) here.
Net neutrality will be the biggest fight, predicted Kristian Stout, International Center for Law & Economics director-innovation policy. “There are some spectrum issues hanging out there, but none of them strike me as likely to be highly divisive.” Items like the future of Lifeline “are going to require negotiation, but they don’t strike me as highly partisan.” If Rosenworcel isn’t made permanent chair, he warned of “tensions on the Democrat side of the commission which could create roadblocks.”
Inc. – ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, was quoted in Inc.com on But while small ISPs didn’t stand to gain . . .
Inc. – ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, was quoted in Inc.com on
But while small ISPs didn’t stand to gain much from the repeal of net neutrality, a hasty return to classifying them as a utility under Title II (which in effect, is what net neutrality did) may also create uncertainty in the market, cautions Professor Guz Hurwitz, an associate professor of law at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. “In the longer run, Title II regulation would create some threat of ongoing regulation which could detract capital investment in the market,” Hurwitz says. “These effects, however, more likely affect larger ISPs to a greater extent than they affect smaller ISPs.”
But while small ISPs didn’t stand to gain much from the repeal of net neutrality, a hasty return to classifying them as a utility under Title II (which in effect, is what net neutrality did) may also create uncertainty in the market, cautions Professor Guz Hurwitz, an associate professor of law at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
“In the longer run, Title II regulation would create some threat of ongoing regulation which could detract capital investment in the market,” Hurwitz says. “These effects, however, more likely affect larger ISPs to a greater extent than they affect smaller ISPs.”
Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz is quoted in the Los Angeles Times piece Upholding FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules, court opens . . .
Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz is quoted in the Los Angeles Times piece Upholding FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules, court opens door for California to enforce its own by Suhauna Hussein. The article discusses the Federal Appeals Court decision to uphold the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of Obama-era net neutrality protections. Read the full article here.
ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs, Gus Hurwitz was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle piece ‘A big win’: Wiener hails California net neutrality . . .
ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs, Gus Hurwitz was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle piece ‘A big win’: Wiener hails California net neutrality prospects after mixed ruling by Mallory Moench. During the interview Gus explains, “compliance costs/uncertainty could be high enough that small ISPs that cover much of rural America don’t add service to 10-15 new households per year, a significant percentage for in towns and counties with only a few hundred or thousand residents or ISPs that only have 500 or 1000 customers.” Read the article in its entirety here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-net-neutrality-law-survives-federal-14483495.php
Dirk Auer, former research fellow and current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Liège Competition and Innovation Institute will join ICLE’s resident staff as Senior Fellow in Law & . . .
Thibault Schrepel, Assistant Professor in European Economic Law at the Utrecht University School of Law, and Associate Researcher at University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne has joined ICLE as an Academic Affiliate. Most of Thibault’s writing focus on the issue of innovation and high-tech markets in relation to competition law. He has published his work at Harvard, NYU, and Oxford, among others. Two of his writings were among the 10 most downloaded articles on SSRN (worldwide) in the years 2015 and 2017. Thibault is the creator of the Revue Concurrentialiste Journal of Antitrust Law. In April 2018, Thibault was awarded the “Academic Excellence” GCR Awards which honors “an academic competition specialist who has made an outstanding contribution to competition policy in 2017.”
In a CNBC interview on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s position on data regulation, Geoffrey Manne explains that it might have more to do with . . .
In a CNBC interview on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s position on data regulation, Geoffrey Manne explains that it might have more to do with brand definition than the data itself:
Kavanaugh, who clerked for Kennedy, “would be likely, on these issues, to either replicate Kennedy or even steer further towards a First Amendment that’s more likely to degrade regulatory systems,” Bambauer said. However, not everybody thinks that Kavanaugh’s position on data as speech is so clear. Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, said that Kavanaugh’s position in the net neutrality case has more to do with the providers’ right to define their brand than the data itself. The “editorial control” Kavanaugh references, according to Manne, is about ISPs deciding what content they provide customers. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the bits themselves,” he said. Kavanaugh cited another reason, though, for opposing net neutrality. He said that the FCC’s initiation of the rule without authorization from Congress also rendered it unlawful. That position, according to Manne, is what could possibly pit Kavanaugh against regulations of data from the FCC and other agencies.
Kavanaugh, who clerked for Kennedy, “would be likely, on these issues, to either replicate Kennedy or even steer further towards a First Amendment that’s more likely to degrade regulatory systems,” Bambauer said.
However, not everybody thinks that Kavanaugh’s position on data as speech is so clear. Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, said that Kavanaugh’s position in the net neutrality case has more to do with the providers’ right to define their brand than the data itself.
The “editorial control” Kavanaugh references, according to Manne, is about ISPs deciding what content they provide customers. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the bits themselves,” he said.
Kavanaugh cited another reason, though, for opposing net neutrality. He said that the FCC’s initiation of the rule without authorization from Congress also rendered it unlawful. That position, according to Manne, is what could possibly pit Kavanaugh against regulations of data from the FCC and other agencies.
Click here to read the full article at cnbc.com