Digital Economy

Nick Jacobson compares European and American enforcement to opening up the app store on Apple mobile phones, why European consumers and businesses are at an advantage, and if this advantage indicates that it is time for the United States to adopt legislation akin to the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.

Victor Oliveira Fernandes analyzes the contributions to digital market regulation presented in Brazil’s Fair Competition Act for Digital Markets. The proposed act reflects a careful balance between antitrust orthodoxy and innovation and, in its success or failure, will pave the way for additional digital regulation in the Global South.

Judge Amit Mehta shaped his remedies in the Google Search case on the assumption that startups developing generative artificial intelligence models can restore competition in internet search. Mihir Kshirsagar analyzes the barriers to entry these startups face—scale, distribution, defaults, data and integration advantages, and content access—to show how Big Tech is still in control of the future of the search industry.

South Korea’s proposed Online Platform Regulation Act has taken multiple turns amid political upheaval, pressure from the United States, and a fiercely competitive domestic tech market. Hwang Lee explores how global geopolitics, strong domestic platforms, and the "Brussels Effect" are reshaping the country’s approach to digital regulation.

In new research, Sarah Hinck and Jasper van den Boom argue that the European Union’s Digital Markets Act’s (DMA) whistleblower tool does not yet bring enough to the table to effectively incentivize potential informants to report on Big Tech violations.

Georgios Petropoulos, Geoffrey Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne review what the Meta antitrust case reveals about its merger and acquisition strategy and what lessons...

The artificial intelligence market is rapidly developing but antitrust regulators are failing to update their policies, write Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter Jonathan Skrmetti and Kevin Frazier. Regulators’ passiveness risks repeating what happened to social media markets, where a few tech giants were able to acquire nascent competitors and dominate the market. The authors propose three policies to help maintain a competitive AI market.

Recent government wins against Big Tech demonstrate the prudence of proactively stopping consolidation in the emerging AI startup ecosystem to prevent harm to innovation and consumers. OpenAI’s recent acquisition of Windsurf raises these competition concerns. The antitrust agencies should block it.

Herbert Hovenkamp writes that the court presiding over the Google Ad Tech case gave the government an important win. However, by relying on the per se tying rule instead of rule of reason, the court perpetuated a flawed court precedent that can preclude serious market analysis for competitive harms.

Andrey Mir writes that antitrust scholarship and enforcement seeking to break up platform monopolies overlook the benefits that these platforms provide because they are monopolies. He says the community must keep this in mind as it seeks to alleviate harms that any monopoly incurs to the economy.