Last year, Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, seemed to break with the company’s longstanding “complain instead of compete” strategy to acknowledge that:

We’re going to innovate with a challenger mindset…. We’re not coming at this as some incumbent.

Among the first items on his agenda? Treating competing platforms like opportunities for innovation and expansion rather than obstacles to be torn down by any means possible:

We are absolutely committed to making our applications run what most people describe as cross platform…. There is no holding back of anything.

Earlier this week, at its Build Developer Conference, Microsoft announced its most significant initiative yet to bring about this reality: code built into its Windows 10 OS that will enable Android and iOS developers to port apps into the Windows ecosystem more easily.

To make this possible… Windows phones “will include an Android subsystem” meant to play nice with the Java and C++ code developers have already crafted to run on a rival’s operating system…. iOS developers can compile their Objective C code right from Microsoft’s Visual Studio, and turn it into a full-fledged Windows 10 app.

Microsoft also announced that its new browser, rebranded as “Edge,” will run Chrome and Firefox extensions, and that its Office suite would enable a range of third-party services to integrate with Office on Windows, iOS, Android and Mac.

Consumers, developers and Microsoft itself should all benefit from the increased competition that these moves are certain to facilitate.

Most obviously, more consumers may be willing to switch to phones and tablets with the Windows 10 operating system if they can continue to enjoy the apps and extensions they’ve come to rely on when using Google and Apple products. As one commenter said of the move:

I left Windows phone due to the lack of apps. I love the OS though, so if this means all my favorite apps will be on the platform I’ll jump back onto the WP bandwagon in a heartbeat.

And developers should invest more in development when they can expect additional revenue from yet another platform running their apps and extensions, with minimal additional development required.

It’s win-win-win. Except perhaps for Microsoft’s lingering regulatory strategy to hobble Google.

That strategy is built primarily on antitrust claims, most recently rooted in arguments that consumers, developers and competitors alike are harmed by Google’s conduct around Android which, it is alleged, makes it difficult for OS makers (like Cyanogen) and app developers (like Microsoft Bing) to compete.

But Microsoft’s interoperability announcements (along with a host of other rapidly evolving market characteristics) actually serve to undermine the antitrust arguments that Microsoft, through groups like FairSearch and ICOMP, has largely been responsible for pushing in the EU against Google/Android.

The reality is that, with innovations like the one Microsoft announced this week, Microsoft, Google and Apple (and Samsung, Nokia, Tizen, Cyanogen…) are competing more vigorously on several fronts. Such competition is evidence of a vibrant marketplace that is simply not in need of antitrust intervention.

The supreme irony in this is that such a move represents a (further) nail in the coffin of the supposed “applications barrier to entry” that was central to the US DOJ’s antitrust suit against Microsoft and that factors into the contemporary Android antitrust arguments against Google.

Frankly, the argument was never very convincing. Absent unjustified and anticompetitive efforts to prop up such a barrier, the “applications barrier to entry” is just a synonym for “big.” Admittedly, the DC Court of Appeals in Microsoft was careful — far more careful than the district court — to locate specific, narrow conduct beyond the mere existence of the alleged barrier that it believed amounted to anticompetitive monopoly maintenance. But central to the imposition of liability was the finding that some of Microsoft’s conduct deterred application developers from effectively accessing other platforms, without procompetitive justification.

With the implementation of initiatives like the one Microsoft has now undertaken in Windows 10, however, it appears that such concerns regarding Google and mobile app developers are unsupportable.

Of greatest significance to the current Android-related accusations against Google, the appeals court in Microsoft also reversed the district court’s finding of liability based on tying, noting in particular that:

If OS vendors without market power also sell their software bundled with a browser, the natural inference is that sale of the items as a bundle serves consumer demand and that unbundled sale would not.

Of course this is exactly what Microsoft Windows Phone (which decidedly does not have market power) does, suggesting that the bundling of mobile OS’s with proprietary apps is procompetitive.

Similarly, in reviewing the eventual consent decree in Microsoft, the appeals court upheld the conditions that allowed the integration of OS and browser code, and rejected the plaintiff’s assertion that a prohibition on such technological commingling was required by law.

The appeals court praised the district court’s recognition that an appropriate remedy “must place paramount significance upon addressing the exclusionary effect of the commingling, rather than the mere conduct which gives rise to the effect,” as well as the district court’s acknowledgement that “it is not a proper task for the Court to undertake to redesign products.”  Said the appeals court, “addressing the applications barrier to entry in a manner likely to harm consumers is not self-evidently an appropriate way to remedy an antitrust violation.”

Today, claims that the integration of Google Mobile Services (GMS) into Google’s version of the Android OS is anticompetitive are misplaced for the same reason:

But making Android competitive with its tightly controlled competitors [e.g., Apple iOS and Windows Phone] requires special efforts from Google to maintain a uniform and consistent experience for users. Google has tried to achieve this uniformity by increasingly disentangling its apps from the operating system (the opposite of tying) and giving OEMs the option (but not the requirement) of licensing GMS — a “suite” of technically integrated Google applications (integrated with each other, not the OS).  Devices with these proprietary apps thus ensure that both consumers and developers know what they’re getting.

In fact, some commenters have even suggested that, by effectively making the OS more “open,” Microsoft’s new Windows 10 initiative might undermine the Windows experience in exactly this fashion:

As a Windows Phone developer, I think this could easily turn into a horrible idea…. [I]t might break the whole Windows user experience Microsoft has been building in the past few years. Modern UI design is a different approach from both Android and iOS. We risk having a very unhomogenic [sic] store with lots of apps using different design patterns, and Modern UI is in my opinion, one of the strongest points of Windows Phone.

But just because Microsoft may be willing to take this risk doesn’t mean that any sensible conception of competition law and economics should require Google (or anyone else) to do so, as well.

Most significantly, Microsoft’s recent announcement is further evidence that both technological and contractual innovations can (potentially — the initiative is too new to know its effect) transform competition, undermine static market definitions and weaken theories of anticompetitive harm.

When apps and their functionality are routinely built into some OS’s or set as defaults; when mobile apps are also available for the desktop and are seamlessly integrated to permit identical functions to be performed on multiple platforms; and when new form factors like Apple MacBook Air and Microsoft Surface blur the lines between mobile and desktop, traditional, static anticompetitive theories are out the window (no pun intended).

Of course, it’s always been possible for new entrants to overcome network effects and scale impediments by a range of means. Microsoft itself has in the past offered to pay app developers to write for its mobile platform. Similarly, it offers inducements to attract users to its Bing search engine and it has devised several creative mechanisms to overcome its claimed scale inferiority in search.

A further irony (and market complication) is that now some of these apps — the ones with network effects of their own — threaten in turn to challenge the reigning mobile operating systems, exactly as Netscape was purported to threaten Microsoft’s OS (and lead to its anticompetitive conduct) back in the day. Facebook, for example, now offers not only its core social media function, but also search, messaging, video calls, mobile payments, photo editing and sharing, and other functionality that compete with many of the core functions built into mobile OS’s.

But the desire by apps like Facebook to expand their networks by being on multiple platforms, and the desire by these platforms to offer popular apps in order to attract users, ensure that Facebook is ubiquitous, even without any antitrust intervention. As Timothy Bresnahan, Joe Orsini and Pai-Ling Yin demonstrate:

(1) The distribution of app attractiveness to consumers is skewed, with a small minority of apps drawing the vast majority of consumer demand. (2) Apps which are highly demanded on one platform tend also to be highly demanded on the other platform. (3) These highly demanded apps have a strong tendency to multihome, writing for both platforms. As a result, the presence or absence of apps offers little reason for consumers to choose a platform. A consumer can choose either platform and have access to the most attractive apps.

Of course, even before Microsoft’s announcement, cross-platform app development was common, and third-party platforms like Xamarin facilitated cross-platform development. As Daniel O’Connor noted last year:

Even if one ecosystem has a majority of the market share, software developers will release versions for different operating systems if it is cheap/easy enough to do so…. As [Torsten] Körber documents [here], building mobile applications is much easier and cheaper than building PC software. Therefore, it is more common for programmers to write programs for multiple OSes…. 73 percent of apps developers design apps for at least two different mobiles OSes, while 62 percent support 3 or more.

Whether Microsoft’s interoperability efforts prove to be “perfect” or not (and some commenters are skeptical), they seem destined to at least further decrease the cost of cross-platform development, thus reducing any “application barrier to entry” that might impede Microsoft’s ability to compete with its much larger rivals.

Moreover, one of the most interesting things about the announcement is that it will enable Android and iOS apps to run not only on Windows phones, but also on Windows computers. Some 1.3 billion PCs run Windows. Forget Windows’ tiny share of mobile phone OS’s; that massive potential PC market (of which Microsoft still has 91 percent) presents an enormous ready-made market for mobile app developers that won’t be ignored.

It also points up the increasing absurdity of compartmentalizing these markets for antitrust purposes. As the relevant distinctions between mobile and desktop markets break down, the idea of Google (or any other company) “leveraging its dominance” in one market to monopolize a “neighboring” or “related” market is increasingly unsustainable. As I wrote earlier this week:

Mobile and social media have transformed search, too…. This revolution has migrated to the computer, which has itself become “app-ified.” Now there are desktop apps and browser extensions that take users directly to Google competitors such as Kayak, eBay and Amazon, or that pull and present information from these sites.

In the end, intentionally or not, Microsoft is (again) undermining its own case. And it is doing so by innovating and competing — those Schumpeterian concepts that were always destined to undermine antitrust cases in the high-tech sector.

If we’re lucky, Microsoft’s new initiatives are the leading edge of a sea change for Microsoft — a different and welcome mindset built on competing in the marketplace rather than at regulators’ doors.

Filed under: antitrust, barriers to entry, exclusionary conduct, google, market definition, markets, monopolization, technology, tying, tying Tagged: Android, antitrust, competition, Cyanogen, google, Google Mobile Services, innovation, microsoft, Mobile, Satya Nadella, tying, Windows Phone

Last week, the FTC announced its complaint and consent decree with Nomi Technologies for failing to allow consumers to opt-out of cell phone tracking while shopping in retail stores. Whatever one thinks about Nomi itself, the FTC’s enforcement action represents another step in the dubious application of its enforcement authority against deceptive statements.

In response, Geoffrey Manne, Ben Sperry, and Berin Szoka have written a new ICLE White Paper, titled, In the Matter of Nomi, Technologies, Inc.: The Dark Side of the FTC’s Latest Feel-Good Case.

Nomi Technologies offers retailers an innovative way to observe how customers move through their stores, how often they return, what products they browse and for how long (among other things) by tracking the Wi-Fi addresses broadcast by customers’ mobile phones. This allows stores to do what websites do all the time: tweak their configuration, pricing, purchasing and the like in response to real-time analytics — instead of just eyeballing what works. Nomi anonymized the data it collected so that retailers couldn’t track specific individuals. Recognizing that some customers might still object, even to “anonymized” tracking, Nomi allowed anyone to opt-out of all Nomi tracking on its website.

The FTC, though, seized upon a promise made within Nomi’s privacy policy to provide an additional, in-store opt out and argued that Nomi’s failure to make good on this promise — and/or notify customers of which stores used the technology — made its privacy policy deceptive. Commissioner Wright dissented, noting that the majority failed to consider evidence that showed the promise was not material, arguing that the inaccurate statement was not important enough to actually affect consumers’ behavior because they could opt-out on the website anyway. Both Commissioners Wright’s and Commissioner Ohlhausen’s dissents argued that the FTC majority’s enforcement decision in Nomi amounted to prosecutorial overreach, imposing an overly stringent standard of review without any actual indication of consumer harm.

The FTC’s deception authority is supposed to provide the agency with the authority to remedy consumer harms not effectively handled by common law torts and contracts — but it’s not a blank check. The 1983 Deception Policy Statement requires the FTC to demonstrate:

1. There is a representation, omission or practice that is likely to mislead the consumer;
2. A consumer’s interpretation of the representation, omission, or practice is considered reasonable under the circumstances; and
3. The misleading representation, omission, or practice is material (meaning the inaccurate statement was important enough to actually affect consumers’ behavior).

Under the DPS, certain types of claims are treated as presumptively material, although the FTC is always supposed to “consider relevant and competent evidence offered to rebut presumptions of materiality.” The Nomi majority failed to do exactly that in its analysis of the company’s claims, as Commissioner Wright noted in his dissent:

the Commission failed to discharge its commitment to duly consider relevant and competent evidence that squarely rebuts the presumption that Nomi’s failure to implement an additional, retail-level opt out was material to consumers. In other words, the Commission neglects to take into account evidence demonstrating consumers would not “have chosen differently” but for the allegedly deceptive representation.

As we discuss in detail in the white paper, we believe that the Commission committed several additional legal errors in its application of the Deception Policy Statement in Nomi, over and above its failure to adequately weigh exculpatory evidence. Exceeding the legal constraints of the DPS isn’t just a legal problem: in this case, it’s led the FTC to bring an enforcement action that will likely have the very opposite of its intended result, discouraging rather than encouraging further disclosure.

Moreover, as we write in the white paper:

Nomi is the latest in a long string of recent cases in which the FTC has pushed back against both legislative and self-imposed constraints on its discretion. By small increments (unadjudicated consent decrees), but consistently and with apparent purpose, the FTC seems to be reverting to the sweeping conception of its power to police deception and unfairness that led the FTC to a titanic clash with Congress back in 1980.

The Nomi case presents yet another example of the need for FTC process reforms. Those reforms could ensure the FTC focuses on cases that actually make consumers better off. But given the FTC majority’s unwavering dedication to maximizing its discretion, such reforms will likely have to come from Congress.

Find the full white paper here.

Filed under: consumer protection, data security, federal trade commission, international center for law & economics, technology Tagged: cell phone tracking, consumer protection, Deception, Federal Trade Commission, ftc, joshua wright, Materiality, Nomi Technologies, privacy

Summary

“‘Capricious’ is defined as ‘given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.’ That is just the word to describe the FCC’s decision in its 2014 Order to reverse a quarter century of agency practice by a vote of 3-to-2 and suddenly declare unlawful scores of JSAs between local television broadcast stations, many of which were originally approved by the FCC and have been in place for a decade or longer. The FCC’s action was not only capricious, but also contrary to law for two fundamental reasons.

First, the 2014 Order extends the FCC’s outdated ‘duopoly’ rule to JSAs that have never before been subject to it, many of which were blessed by the agency, without first determining whether that rule is still in the public interest. The ‘duopoly’ rule — first adopted in 1964 during the age of black-and-white TV — prohibits one entity from owning FCC licenses to two or more TV stations in the same local market unless there are at least eight independently owned stations in that market…The FCC’s 2014 Order makes a mockery of this congressional directive. In it, the Commission announced that, instead of completing its statutorily-mandated 2010 Quadrennial Review of its local ownership rules, it would roll that review into a new 2014 Quadrennial Review, while retaining its duopoly rule pending completion of that review because it had ‘tentatively’ concluded that it was still necessary. This Court should not accept this regulatory legerdemain. The 1996 Act does not allow the FCC to retain its duopoly rule in its current form without making the statutorily-required determination that it is still necessary. A ‘tentative’ conclusion that does not take into account the significant changes both in competition policy and in the market for video programming that have occurred since the current rule was first adopted in 1999 is not an acceptable substitute.

Second, having illegally retained the outdated duopoly rule, the 2014 Order then dramatically expands its scope by amending the FCC’s local ownership attribution rules to make the rule applicable to JSAs, which had never before been subject to it. The Commission thereby suddenly declares unlawful JSAs in scores of local markets, many of which have been operating for a decade or longer without any harm to competition. Even more remarkably, it does so despite the fact that both the DOJ and the FCC itself had previously reviewed many of these JSAs and concluded that they were not likely to lessen competition. In doing so, the FCC also fails to examine the empirical evidence accumulated over the nearly two decades some of these JSAs have been operating. That evidence shows that many of these JSAs have substantially reduced the costs of operating TV stations and improved the quality of their programming without causing any harm to competition, thereby serving the public interest…”

Earlier this week the International Center for Law & Economics, along with a group of prominent professors and scholars of law and economics, filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit seeking rehearing en banc of the court’s FTC, et al. v. St Luke’s case.

ICLE, joined by the Medicaid Defense Fund, also filed an amicus brief with the Ninth Circuit panel that originally heard the case.

The case involves the purchase by St. Luke’s Hospital of the Saltzer Medical Group, a multi-specialty physician group in Nampa, Idaho. The FTC and the State of Idaho sought to permanently enjoin the transaction under the Clayton Act, arguing that

[T]he combination of St. Luke’s and Saltzer would give it the market power to demand higher rates for health care services provided by primary care physicians (PCPs) in Nampa, Idaho and surrounding areas, ultimately leading to higher costs for health care consumers.

The district court agreed and its decision was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit panel.

Unfortunately, in affirming the district court’s decision, the Ninth Circuit made several errors in its treatment of the efficiencies offered by St. Luke’s in defense of the merger. Most importantly:

• The court refused to recognize St. Luke’s proffered quality efficiencies, stating that “[i]t is not enough to show that the merger would allow St. Luke’s to better serve patients.”
• The panel also applied the “less restrictive alternative” analysis in such a way that any theoretically possible alternative to a merger would discount those claimed efficiencies.
• Finally, the Ninth Circuit panel imposed a much higher burden of proof for St. Luke’s to prove efficiencies than it did for the FTC to make out its prima facie case.

As we note in our brief:

If permitted to stand, the Panel’s decision will signal to market participants that the efficiencies defense is essentially unavailable in the Ninth Circuit, especially if those efficiencies go towards improving quality. Companies contemplating a merger designed to make each party more efficient will be unable to rely on an efficiencies defense and will therefore abandon transactions that promote consumer welfare lest they fall victim to the sort of reasoning employed by the panel in this case.

The following excerpts from the brief elaborate on the errors committed by the court and highlight their significance, particularly in the health care context:

The Panel implied that only price effects can be cognizable efficiencies, noting that the District Court “did not find that the merger would increase competition or decrease prices.” But price divorced from product characteristics is an irrelevant concept. The relevant concept is quality-adjusted price, and a showing that a merger would result in higher product quality at the same price would certainly establish cognizable efficiencies.

* * *

By placing the ultimate burden of proving efficiencies on the defendants and by applying a narrow, impractical view of merger specificity, the Panel has wrongfully denied application of known procompetitive efficiencies. In fact, under the Panel’s ruling, it will be nearly impossible for merging parties to disprove all alternatives when the burden is on the merging party to address any and every untested, theoretical less-restrictive structural alternative.

* * *

Significantly, the Panel failed to consider the proffered significant advantages that health care acquisitions may have over contractual alternatives or how these advantages impact the feasibility of contracting as a less restrictive alternative. In a complex integration of assets, “the costs of contracting will generally increase more than the costs of vertical integration.” (Benjamin Klein, Robert G. Crawford, and Armen A. Alchian, Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process, 21 J. L. & ECON. 297, 298 (1978)). In health care in particular, complexity is a given. Health care is characterized by dramatically imperfect information, and myriad specialized and differentiated products whose attributes are often difficult to measure. Realigning incentives through contract is imperfect and often unsuccessful. Moreover, the health care market is one of the most fickle, plagued by constantly changing market conditions arising from technological evolution, ever-changing regulations, and heterogeneous (and shifting) consumer demand. Such uncertainty frequently creates too many contingencies for parties to address in either writing or enforcing contracts, making acquisition a more appropriate substitute.

* * *

Sound antitrust policy and law do not permit the theoretical to triumph over the practical. One can always envision ways that firms could function to achieve potential efficiencies…. But this approach would harm consumers and fail to further the aims of the antitrust laws.

* * *

The Panel’s approach to efficiencies in this case demonstrates a problematic asymmetry in merger analysis. As FTC Commissioner Wright has cautioned:

Merger analysis is by its nature a predictive enterprise. Thinking rigorously about probabilistic assessment of competitive harms is an appropriate approach from an economic perspective. However, there is some reason for concern that the approach applied to efficiencies is deterministic in practice. In other words, there is a potentially dangerous asymmetry from a consumer welfare perspective of an approach that embraces probabilistic prediction, estimation, presumption, and simulation of anticompetitive effects on the one hand but requires efficiencies to be proven on the other. (Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Joshua D. Wright at 5, In the Matter of Ardagh Group S.A., and Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain)

* * *

In this case, the Panel effectively presumed competitive harm and then imposed unduly high evidentiary burdens on the merging parties to demonstrate actual procompetitive effects. The differential treatment and evidentiary burdens placed on St. Luke’s to prove competitive benefits is “unjustified and counterproductive.” (Daniel A. Crane, Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, 110 MICH. L. REV. 347, 390 (2011)). Such asymmetry between the government’s and St. Luke’s burdens is “inconsistent with a merger policy designed to promote consumer welfare.” (Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Joshua D. Wright at 7, In the Matter of Ardagh Group S.A., and Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain).

* * *

In reaching its decision, the Panel dismissed these very sorts of procompetitive and quality-enhancing efficiencies associated with the merger that were recognized by the district court. Instead, the Panel simply decided that it would not consider the “laudable goal” of improving health care as a procompetitive efficiency in the St. Luke’s case – or in any other health care provider merger moving forward. The Panel stated that “[i]t is not enough to show that the merger would allow St. Luke’s to better serve patients.” Such a broad, blanket conclusion can serve only to harm consumers.

* * *

By creating a barrier to considering quality-enhancing efficiencies associated with better care, the approach taken by the Panel will deter future provider realignment and create a “chilling” effect on vital provider integration and collaboration. If the Panel’s decision is upheld, providers will be considerably less likely to engage in realignment aimed at improving care and lowering long-term costs. As a result, both patients and payors will suffer in the form of higher costs and lower quality of care. This can’t be – and isn’t – the outcome to which appropriate antitrust law and policy aspires.

The scholars joining ICLE on the brief are:

• George Bittlingmayer, Wagnon Distinguished Professor of Finance and Otto Distinguished Professor of Austrian Economics, University of Kansas

• Henry Butler, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center, George Mason University

• Daniel A. Crane, Associate Dean for Faculty and Research and Professor of Law, University of Michigan

• Harold Demsetz, UCLA Emeritus Chair Professor of Business Economics, University of California, Los Angeles

• Bernard Ganglmair, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas

• Gus Hurwitz, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Keith Hylton, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Law, Boston University

• Thom Lambert, Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance, University of Missouri

• John Lopatka, A. Robert Noll Distinguished Professor of Law, Pennsylvania State University

• Geoffrey Manne, Founder and Executive Director of the International Center for Law and Economics and Senior Fellow at TechFreedom

• Stephen Margolis, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor, North Carolina State University

• Fred McChesney, de la Cruz-Mentschikoff Endowed Chair in Law and Economics, University of Miami

• Tom Morgan, Oppenheim Professor Emeritus of Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law, George Washington University

• David Olson, Associate Professor of Law, Boston College

• Paul H. Rubin, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics, Emory University

• D. Daniel Sokol, Professor of Law, University of Florida

• Mike Sykuta, Associate Professor and Director of the Contracting and Organizations Research Institute, University of Missouri

The amicus brief is available here.

Filed under: Affordable Care Act, antitrust, federal trade commission, health care, international center for law & economics, law and economics, merger guidelines, mergers & acquisitions Tagged: Amicus Brief, Daniel Crane, Efficiencies, Federal Trade Commission, ftc, health care, Hospital Mergers, icle, international center for law and economics, Josh Wright, joshua wright, merger efficiencies, Ninth Circuit, primary care physicians, St. Luke’s

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the FTC Bureau of Competition staff report to the commissioners in the Google antitrust investigation recommended that the Commission approve an antitrust suit against the company.

While this is excellent fodder for a few hours of Twitter hysteria, it takes more than 140 characters to delve into the nuances of a 20-month federal investigation. And the bottom line is, frankly, pretty ho-hum.

As I said recently,

One of life’s unfortunate certainties, as predictable as death and taxes, is this: regulators regulate.

The Bureau of Competition staff is made up of professional lawyers — many of them litigators, whose existence is predicated on there being actual, you know, litigation. If you believe in human fallibility at all, you have to expect that, when they err, FTC staff errs on the side of too much, rather than too little, enforcement.

So is it shocking that the FTC staff might recommend that the Commission undertake what would undoubtedly have been one of the agency’s most significant antitrust cases? Hardly.

Nor is it surprising that the commissioners might not always agree with staff. In fact, staff recommendations are ignored all the time, for better or worse. Here are just a few examples: R.J Reynolds/Brown & Williamson merger, POM Wonderful , Home Shopping Network/QVC merger, cigarette advertising. No doubt there are many, many more.

Regardless, it also bears pointing out that the staff did not recommend the FTC bring suit on the central issue of search bias “because of the strong procompetitive justifications Google has set forth”:

Complainants allege that Google’s conduct is anticompetitive because if forecloses alternative search platforms that might operate to constrain Google’s dominance in search and search advertising. Although it is a close call, we do not recommend that the Commission issue a complaint against Google for this conduct.

But this caveat is enormous. To report this as the FTC staff recommending a case is seriously misleading. Here they are forbearing from bringing 99% of the case against Google, and recommending suit on the marginal 1% issues. It would be more accurate to say, “FTC staff recommends no case against Google, except on a couple of minor issues which will be immediately settled.”

And in fact it was on just these minor issues that Google agreed to voluntary commitments to curtail some conduct when the FTC announced it was not bringing suit against the company.

The Wall Street Journal quotes some other language from the staff report bolstering the conclusion that this is a complex market, the conduct at issue was ambiguous (at worst), and supporting the central recommendation not to sue:

We are faced with a set of facts that can most plausibly be accounted for by a narrative of mixed motives: one in which Google’s course of conduct was premised on its desire to innovate and to produce a high quality search product in the face of competition, blended with the desire to direct users to its own vertical offerings (instead of those of rivals) so as to increase its own revenues. Indeed, the evidence paints a complex portrait of a company working toward an overall goal of maintaining its market share by providing the best user experience, while simultaneously engaging in tactics that resulted in harm to many vertical competitors, and likely helped to entrench Google’s monopoly power over search and search advertising.

On a global level, the record will permit Google to show substantial innovation, intense competition from Microsoft and others, and speculative long-run harm.

This is exactly when you want antitrust enforcers to forbear. Predicting anticompetitive effects is difficult, and conduct that could be problematic is simultaneously potentially vigorous competition.

That the staff concluded that some of what Google was doing “harmed competitors” isn’t surprising — there were lots of competitors parading through the FTC on a daily basis claiming Google harmed them. But antitrust is about protecting consumers, not competitors. Far more important is the staff finding of “substantial innovation, intense competition from Microsoft and others, and speculative long-run harm.”

Indeed, the combination of “substantial innovation,” “intense competition from Microsoft and others,” and “Google’s strong procompetitive justifications” suggests a well-functioning market. It similarly suggests an antitrust case that the FTC would likely have lost. The FTC’s litigators should probably be grateful that the commissioners had the good sense to vote to close the investigation.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal also reports that the FTC’s Bureau of Economics simultaneously recommended that the Commission not bring suit at all against Google. It is not uncommon for the lawyers and the economists at the Commission to disagree. And as a general (though not inviolable) rule, we should be happy when the Commissioners side with the economists.

While the press, professional Google critics, and the company’s competitors may want to make this sound like a big deal, the actual facts of the case and a pretty simple error-cost analysis suggests that not bringing a case was the correct course.

Filed under: antitrust, error costs, exclusionary conduct, exclusive dealing, federal trade commission, google, Internet search, law and economics, monopolization, settlements, technology Tagged: error costs, Federal Trade Commission, ftc, google

Please join the LEC in person or online for a morning of lively discussion on this topic. FTC Commissioner Maureen K. Ohlhausen will set the stage by discussing her Antitrust Law Journal article, “Competition, Consumer Protection and The Right [Approach] To Privacy“. A panel discussion on big data and antitrust, which includes some of the leading thinkers on the subject, will follow.

Other featured speakers include:

Allen P. Grunes
Founder, The Konkurrenz Group and Data Competition Institute

Andres Lerner
Executive Vice President, Compass Lexecon

Darren S. Tucker
Partner, Morgan Lewis

Nathan Newman
Director, Economic and Technology Strategies LLC

Moderator: James C. Cooper
Director, Research and Policy, Law & Economics Center

A full agenda is available click here.

Filed under: announcements, antitrust, consumer protection, privacy, truth on the market Tagged: antitrust, big data, consumer protection, Federal Trade Commission, ftc, George Mason University School of Law, Law and Economics Center

Anybody who has spent much time with children knows how squishy a concept “unfairness” can be.  One can hear the exchange, “He’s not being fair!” “No, she’s not!,” only so many times before coming to understand that unfairness is largely in the eye of the beholder.

Perhaps it’s unfortunate, then, that Congress chose a century ago to cast the Federal Trade Commission’s authority in terms of preventing “unfair methods of competition.”  But that’s what it did, and the question now is whether there is some way to mitigate this “eye of the beholder” problem.

There is.

We know that any business practice that violates the substantive antitrust laws (the Sherman and Clayton Acts) is an unfair method of competition, so we can look to Sherman and Clayton Act precedents to assess the “unfairness” of business practices that those laws reach.  But what about the Commission’s so-called “standalone” UMC authority—its power to prevent business practices that seem to impact competition unfairly but are not technically violations of the substantive antitrust laws?

Almost two years ago, Commissioner Josh Wright recognized that if the FTC’s standalone UMC authority is to play a meaningful role in assuring market competition, the Commission should issue guidelines on what constitutes an unfair method of competition. He was right.  The Commission, you see, really has only four options with respect to standalone Section 5 claims:

1. It could bring standalone actions based on current commissioners’ considered judgments about what constitutes unfairness. Such an approach, though, is really inconsistent with the rule of law. Past commissioners, for example, have gone so far as to suggest that practices causing “resource depletion, energy waste, environmental contamination, worker alienation, [and] the psychological and social consequences of producer-stimulated demands” could be unfair methods of competition. Maybe our current commissioners wouldn’t cast so wide a net, but they’re not always going to be in power. A government of laws and not of men simply can’t mete out state power on the basis of whim.
2. It could bring standalone actions based on unfairness principles appearing in Section 5’s “common law.” The problem here is that there is no such common law. As Commissioner Wright has observed and I have previously explained, a common law doesn’t just happen. Development of a common law requires vigorously litigated disputes and reasoned, published opinions that resolve those disputes and serve as precedent. Section 5 “litigation,” such as it is, doesn’t involve any of that.
   • First, standalone Section 5 disputes tend not to be vigorously litigated. Because the FTC acts as both prosecutor and judge in such actions, their outcome is nearly a foregone conclusion. When FTC staff win before the administrative law judge, the ALJ’s decision is always affirmed by the full commission; when staff loses with the ALJ, the full Commission always reverses. Couple this stacked deck with the fact that unfairness exists in the eye of the beholder and will therefore change with the composition of the Commission, and we end up with a situation in which accused parties routinely settle. As Commissioner Wright observes, “parties will typically prefer to settle a Section 5 claim rather than go through lengthy and costly litigation in which they are both shooting at a moving target and have the chips stacked against them.”
   • The consent decrees that memorialize settlements, then, offer little prospective guidance. They usually don’t include any detailed explanation of why the practice at issue was an unfair method of competition. Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter much; the Commission doesn’t treat its own enforcement decisions as precedent. In light of the realities of Section 5 litigation, there really is no Section 5 common law.
3. It could refrain from bringing standalone Section 5 actions and pursue only business practices that violate the substantive antitrust laws. Substantive antitrust violations constitute unfair methods of competition, and the federal courts have established fairly workable principles for determining when business practices violate the Sherman and Clayton Acts. The FTC could therefore avoid the “eye of the beholder” problem by limiting its UMC authority to business conduct that violates the antitrust laws. Such an approach, though, would prevent the FTC from policing conduct that, while not technically an antitrust violation, is anticompetitive and injurious to consumers.
4. It could bring standalone Section 5 actions based on articulated guidelines establishing what constitutes an unfair method of competition. This is really the only way to use Section 5 to pursue business practices that are not otherwise antitrust violations, without offending the rule of law.

Now, if the FTC is to take this fourth approach—the only one that both allows for standalone Section 5 actions and honors rule of law commitments—it obviously has to settle on a set of guidelines.  Fortunately, it has almost done so!

Since Commissioner Wright called for Section 5 guidelines almost two years ago, much ink has been spilled outlining and critiquing proposed guidelines.  Commissioner Wright got the ball rolling by issuing his own proposal along with his call for the adoption of guidelines.  Commissioner Ohlhausen soon followed suit, proposing a slightly broader set of principles.  Numerous commentators then joined the conversation (a number doing so in a TOTM symposium), and each of the other commissioners has now stated her own views.

A good deal of consensus has emerged.  Each commissioner agrees that Section 5 should be used to prosecute only conduct that is actually anticompetitive (as defined by the federal courts).  There is also apparent consensus on the view that standalone Section 5 authority should not be used to challenge conduct governed by well-forged liability principles under the Sherman and Clayton Acts.  (For example, a practice routinely evaluated under Section 2 of the Sherman Act should not be pursued using standalone Section 5 authority.)  The commissioners, and the vast majority of commentators, also agree that there should be some efficiencies screen in prosecution decisions.  The remaining disagreement centers on the scope of the efficiencies screen—i.e., how much of an efficiency benefit must a business practice confer in order to be insulated from standalone Section 5 liability?

On that narrow issue—the only legitimate point of dispute remaining among the commissioners—three views have emerged:  Commissioner Wright would refrain from prosecuting if the conduct at issue creates any cognizable efficiencies; Commissioner Ohlhausen would do so as long as the efficiencies are not disproportionately outweighed by anticompetitive harms; Chairwoman Ramirez would engage in straightforward balancing (not a “disproportionality” inquiry) and would refrain from prosecution only where efficiencies outweigh anticompetitive harms.

That leaves three potential sets of guidelines.  In each, it would be necessary that a behavior subject to any standalone Section 5 action (1) create actual or likely anticompetitive harm, and (2) not be subject to well-forged case law under the traditional antitrust laws (so that pursuing the action might cause the distinction between lawful and unlawful commercial behavior to become blurred).  Each of the three sets of guidelines would also include an efficiencies screen—either (3a) the conduct lacks cognizable efficiencies, (3b) the harms created by the conduct are disproportionate to the conduct’s cognizable efficiencies, or (3c) the harms created by the conduct are not outweighed by cognizable efficiencies.

As Commissioner Wright has observed any one of these sets of guidelines would be superior to the status quo.  Accordingly, if the commissioners could agree on the acceptability of any of them, they could improve the state of U.S. competition law.

Recognizing as much, Commissioner Wright is wisely calling on the commissioners to vote on the acceptability of each set of guidelines.  If any set is deemed acceptable by a majority of commissioners, it should be promulgated as official FTC Guidance.  (Presumably, if more than one set commands majority support, the set that most restrains FTC enforcement authority would be the one promulgated as FTC Guidance.)

Of course, individual commissioners might just choose not to vote.  That would represent a sad abdication of authority.  Given that there isn’t (and under current practice, there can’t be) a common law of Section 5, failure to vote on a set of guidelines would effectively cast a vote for either option 1 stated above (ignore rule of law values) or option 3 (limit Section 5’s potential to enhance consumer welfare).  Let’s hope our commissioners don’t relegate us to those options.

The debate has occurred.  It’s time to vote.

Filed under: antitrust, consumer protection, federal trade commission, regulation, section 5, UMC symposium