Antitrust

Senate Panel To Consider Klobuchar Antitrust Bills That Imploded Last Congress

On March 7, the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights will hold a hearing that examining “reining in dominant digital platforms, focusing on restoring competition to our digital markets.”  Some lawmakers will likely use the hearing as an opportunity to boost momentum for a package of antitrust…

NTIA Releases Misguided Report on App Stores With Biased, Politically Motivated Conclusions

As a part of the Biden Administration’s full-court press to shove misguided antitrust legislation through Congress, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a highly flawed report slamming the practices of top American mobile app store ecosystems. The report fails to effectively provide a critical consideration regarding the effects of…

Voters Don’t Buy That OAMA Will Boost App Store Competition

As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that ordinary Americans lack enthusiasm for greater regulation of American tech companies. According to recent polls conducted by Morning Consult/ Politico, only two provisions of the Open App Markets Act (OAMA) — “preventing app stores from self-preferencing their own…

FTC Abandons Consumer Welfare Standard With Latest Lina Khan Edict

According to media reports, Lina Khan’s FTC intends to make “make wider use of its 1914 founding statute to police anticompetitive behavior by companies in the internet age.” At first glance, increased antitrust enforcement against anticompetitive behavior does not seem objectionable. However, a deeper dive into the FTC’s latest policy…

News Flash to Lina Khan: Meta is No Monopoly

According to the FTC’s summary of their case against Meta, the principal justification for their legal action against the supposed ‘tech giant’ is that “the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” While this claim may seem credible to laymen, those…

New Punchbowl News Poll: Klobuchar Antitrust Bill “Isn’t Terribly Popular”

The House passed the “Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act” (H.R. 3843) last week, legislation that would raise fees on larger companies engaging in M&A activity and prohibit companies from requesting a venue change when a state attorney general brings an antitrust suit.  Lawmakers who’ve been pushing for another bill, the…

FTC’s Politically Motivated Pursuit of Meta-Within Acquisition Gets Stranger

Not even Netflix’s Stranger Things has managed to construe odder narrative developments than the ones unfolding from the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) pursuit of a meritless lawsuit against Meta. This week, a report came out that Meta found out about FTC’s lawsuit against them from Twitter. The lack of warning before filing…