Antitrust

Taken together with dozens of other fines the EU has imposed on American tech firms, last week’s action against Google was further confirmation that the DMA functions less as a competition tool than as an extractive mechanism. The difference this time is that the Trump administration sent a clear signal it won’t stand for this anymore.

Rather than resort to heavy-handed content and price regulation to address nonexistent market failures, the CMA should follow the lead of the United States and rely on a tried-and-true, ex post law enforcement framework to address concerns about anticompetitive behavior associated with anti-steering practices by Apple and Google.

Watch now for a debate on the resolution: “AICOA undermines American innovation and choice.” Joseph Coniglio, Senior Counsel and Director of the Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy at ITIF, argued in favor of the resolution, while Joel Thayer, President of the Digital Progress Institute, argued against it.

The App Store Freedom Act would impede innovation, weaken U.S. technological leadership, and import a hostile antitrust framework used abroad to discriminate against American technology companies.

Joseph V. Coniglio hosts retired Jones Day partner and former DOJ Antitrust Division leader Joe Sims, who recounts how he discovered antitrust in law school, explains the origins and impact of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, and forecasts diminished FTC antitrust authority.

South Korea's discriminatory treatment of American tech firms exposes a critical gap in the U.S.-Korea relationship. The two countries should negotiate a dedicated mechanism for resolving bilateral digital trade disputes.

If AWS and Azure are designated under the DMA, the law’s intentional targeting of U.S. tech platforms will be almost impossible to hide.

Innovation not only gives rise to market power, but market power fosters innovation by enabling and incentivizing the firms that possess it to make the investments innovation requires.

While ITIF believes that the New Draft Merger Guidelines have many features that will significantly improve merger enforcement in Europe, there remain a number of areas where the guidelines can and should be substantially improved.

The European Commission is stretching the DMA to target cloud infrastructure, raising the stakes for U.S.-EU tech tensions.