The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to debate S. 2992, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (or AICOA) during a markup session Thursday. If passed into law, the bill would force online platforms to treat rivals’ services as they would their own, while ensuring their platforms interoperate seamlessly.

Read the full piece here.

Law and technology overlap in many ways, but scholars and regulators tend to focus on incompatibilities between the two. I propose that they also explore synergies between law and tech, and address frictions in a way that preserves them. This exploration should begin with blockchain and antitrust.

Read the full piece here.

In policy discussions about the digital economy, a background assumption that frequently underlies the discourse is that intermediaries and centralization always and only serve as a cost to consumers, and to society more generally. Thus, one commonly sees arguments that consumers would be better off if they could freely combine products from different trading partners. According to this logic, bundled goods, walled gardens, and other intermediaries are always to be regarded with suspicion, while interoperability, open source, and decentralization are laudable features of any market.

Read the full piece here.

Early last month, the Italian competition authority issued a record 1.128 billion euro fine against Amazon for abuse of dominance under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In its order, the Agenzia Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) essentially argues that Amazon has combined its Amazon.it marketplace and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) services to exclude logistics rivals such as FedEx, DHL, UPS, and Poste Italiane.

Read the full piece.

Abstract

Among the numerous legislative initiatives implemented around the globe on digital platforms, some of these provisions are explicitly directed towards app stores. As they have all the distinctive features of multi-sided markets, app store owners represent the prototype of digital gatekeepers, controlling access to mobile ecosystems and competing with business users operating on the platforms. In light of the rule-setting and dual role of these gateway players, regulatory interventions are required in order to ensure that large app stores are treated like common carriers or public utilities, thereby imposing upon them a neutrality regime vis-à-vis new entrants. For the very same reasons, dominant app store providers have been subject to an increasing number of antitrust investigations attempting to ensure equal treatment and to avoid self-preferencing at the expense of rivals’ services. Against this background, the article investigates whether antitrust provisions are flexible enough to curb anti-competitive practices carried out by app stores and the extent to which regulatory interventions could, on the other hand, be necessary in order to address the seemingly unique features of the app economy.

As a new year dawns, the Biden administration remains fixated on illogical, counterproductive “big is bad” nostrums.

Noted economist and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers correctly stressed recently that using antitrust to fight inflation represents “science denial,” tweeting that…

Read the full piece here.

Even as delivery services work to ship all of those last-minute Christmas presents that consumers bought this season from digital platforms and other e-commerce sites, the U.S. House and Senate are contemplating Grinch-like legislation that looks to stop or limit how Big Tech companies can “self-preference” or “discriminate” on their platforms.

Read the full piece here.

ICLE Director of Competition Policy Sam Bowman joined The CapX Podcast for a discussion of the biggest stories of 2021. The full episode is embedded below.

Antitrust policymakers around the world have taken a page out of the Silicon Valley playbook and decided to “move fast and break things.” While the slogan is certainly catchy, applying it to the policymaking world is unfortunate and, ultimately, threatens to harm consumers.

Read the full piece here.