Research Programs
More
What are you looking for?
Showing 9 of 82 Results in Advertising
TOTM In the final analysis, what the revelations do not show is that the FTC’s market for ideas failed consumers a decade ago when it declined to bring an antitrust suit against Google.
Politico has released a cache of confidential Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents in connection with a series of articles on the commission’s antitrust probe into Google Search a decade ago. The headline of the first piece in the series argues the FTC “fumbled the future” by failing to follow through on staff recommendations to pursue antitrust intervention against the company.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s complaint against Google’s advertising business, joined by the attorneys general of nine other states, continues a long tradition of narrowing market definition to shoehorn market dominance where it may not exist.
U.S. antitrust regulators have a history of narrowly defining relevant markets—often to the point of absurdity—in order to create market power out of thin air. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) famously declared that Whole Foods and Wild Oats operated in the “premium natural and organic supermarkets market”—a narrowly defined market designed to exclude other supermarkets carrying premium natural and organic foods, such as Walmart and Kroger. Similarly, for the Staples-Office Depot merger, the FTC narrowly defined the relevant market as “office superstore” chains, which excluded general merchandisers such as Walmart, K-Mart and Target, who at the time accounted for 80% of office supply sales.
TOTM Google is facing a series of lawsuits in 2020 and 2021 that challenge some of the most fundamental parts of its business, and of the internet itself — Search, Android, Chrome, Google’s digital-advertising business, and potentially other services as well.
Google is facing a series of lawsuits in 2020 and 2021 that challenge some of the most fundamental parts of its business, and of the internet itself — Search, Android, Chrome, Google’s digital-advertising business, and potentially other services as well.
TOTM It is my endeavor to scrutinize the questionable assessment articulated against default settings in the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google. Default, I will argue, . . .
It is my endeavor to scrutinize the questionable assessment articulated against default settings in the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google. Default, I will argue, is no antitrust fault. Default in the Google case drastically differs from default referred to in the Microsoft case. In Part I, I argue the comparison is odious. Furthermore, in Part II, it will be argued that the implicit prohibition of default settings echoes, as per listings, the explicit prohibition of self-preferencing in search results. Both aspects – default’s implicit prohibition and self-preferencing’s explicit prohibition – are the two legs of a novel and integrated theory of sanctioning corporate favoritism. The coming to the fore of such theory goes against the very essence of the capitalist grain. In Part III, I note the attempt to instill some corporate selflessness is at odds with competition on the merits and the spirit of fundamental economic freedoms.
TOTM We explain how display advertising fits in the broader digital advertising market, describe how display advertising works, consider the main allegations against Google, and explain why Google’s critics are misguided to focus on antitrust as a solution to alleged problems in the market.
This week the Senate will hold a hearing into potential anticompetitive conduct by Google in its display advertising business—the “stack” of products that it offers to advertisers seeking to place display ads on third-party websites. It is also widely reported that the Department of Justice is preparing a lawsuit against Google that will likely include allegations of anticompetitive behavior in this market, and is likely to be joined by a number of state attorneys general in that lawsuit. Meanwhile, several papers have been published detailing these allegations.
TOTM The COVID-19 crisis has recast virtually every contemporary policy debate in the context of public health, and digital privacy is no exception. Conversations that once . . .
The COVID-19 crisis has recast virtually every contemporary policy debate in the context of public health, and digital privacy is no exception. Conversations that once focused on the value and manner of tracking to enable behavioral advertising have shifted. Congress, on the heels of years of false-starts and failed efforts to introduce nationwide standards, is now lurching toward framing privacy policy through the lens of proposed responses to the virus.
TOTM I type these words while subject to a stay-at-home order issued by West Virginia Governor James C. Justice II. “To preserve public health and safety, and to . . .
I type these words while subject to a stay-at-home order issued by West Virginia Governor James C. Justice II. “To preserve public health and safety, and to ensure the healthcare system in West Virginia is capable of serving all citizens in need,” I am permitted to leave my home only for a limited and precisely enumerated set of reasons. Billions of citizens around the globe are now operating under similar shelter-in-place directives as governments grapple with how to stem the tide of infection, illness and death inflicted by the global Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, the first response of many governments has been to impose severe limitations on physical movement to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The second response contemplated by many, and the one on which this blog post focuses, involves the extensive collection and analysis of data in connection with people’s movements and health. Some governments are using that data to conduct sophisticated contact tracing, while others are using the power of the state to enforce orders for quarantines and against gatherings.
TOTM The shift in oversight responsibility from parents to the FTC will likely lead to less-effective oversight, more difficult user interfaces, less children’s programming, and higher costs for everyone — all without obviously mitigating any harm in the first place.
The FTC’s recent YouTube settlement and $170 million fine related to charges that YouTube violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) has the issue of targeted advertising back in the news. With an upcoming FTC workshop and COPPA Rule Review looming, it’s worth looking at this case in more detail and reconsidering COPPA’s 2013 amendment to the definition of personal information.
Regulatory Comments The Department should be commended for undertaking this workshop “to explore industry dynamics in media advertising and the implications for antitrust enforcement and policy.... and the competitive dynamics of media advertising in general.” The competitive dynamics of advertising markets—and digital advertising markets, in particular—are complicated and not well-understood.
The Department should be commended for undertaking this workshop “to explore industry dynamics in media advertising and the implications for antitrust enforcement and policy…. and the competitive dynamics of media advertising in general.” The competitive dynamics of advertising markets—and digital advertising markets, in particular—are complicated and not well-understood. As more and more attention is paid to online markets and the welfare implications of various practices, it is crucial that enforcers make measured and informed decisions. As these are rapidly changing markets characterized by novel business models and nonstandard contracts, it is important not to fall prey to the concern that Ronald Coase pointed out half a century ago:
[I]f an economist finds something—a business practice of one sort or another—that he does not understand, he looks for a monopoly explanation. And as in this field we are very ignorant, the number of ununderstandable practices tends to be very large, and the reliance on a monopoly explanation, frequent.
Economic learning has come a long way since then, but markets have also been transformed. This workshop is a valuable step toward updating the economic learning relevant to these novel and economically important markets, and toward ensuring that antitrust enforcement follows suit. As Robert Bork said (and AAG Delrahim quoted in his introductory remarks):
Though the goals of the antitrust statutes as they now stand should be constant, the economic rules that implement that goal should not. It has been understood from the beginning that the rules will and should alter as economic understanding progresses.
We hope that this workshop will be the beginning, not the end, of this discussion undertaken by the US antitrust agencies.
Click here to reach full comments.
