Samuel Bowman •
September 21, 2020
Many competition agencies are considering data portability mandates to increase competition. These would require companies to make customers’ data available to move to other services, or to make their services interoperable with others so that users could share their data between different services on an ongoing basis.
Ben Sperry •
September 10, 2020
Criminal justice reform efforts should focus on ending qualified immunity and restoring the constitutional balance between empowering officers to protect the public while also deterring violations of civil liberties.
Kristian Stout •
September 4, 2020
While there are possible useful reforms to be made to Section 230, forcing major changes to an important law on the basis of a political quarrel would let petty politics reshape one of the most important laws that governs the Internet.
Over the past 15 years, court decisions have weakened patent protections in the US. While some academics support such weakening, the evidence suggests that it may be having a detrimental effect on innovation.
Ben Sperry •
August 25, 2020
The First Amendment and Section 230 immunity work together to protect free speech on the Internet. Attempts at Section 230 reform based on how online platforms use their editorial discretion will run into Constitutional limitations.
Vertical integration allows businesses to innovate more. It may be bad for certain competitors, but it is rarely bad for competition.
Competition is strong in digital markets, but traditional antitrust tools may miss competitive nuances in these markets.
“Self-preferencing” is a normal part of how platforms operate, both to improve the value of their core product and to make money from it so that they have a reason to keep investing in it.
Being acquired is how many startup founders and investors expect to make money. If you make that harder you’ll get fewer startups.