Supporters of the recent antitrust cases against Google and Amazon like to stress America’s long history of successful technology industry interventions. But who says that the iconic cases of the past were necessary and successful? They do.
As Rob Atkinson and David Moschella write in RealClearMarkets, there are at least three reasons to doubt this assertion: 1) technological change has eventually reined in the power of even the mightiest of companies, 2) antitrust cases take so long that they tend to be still going well after the power of the accused firm has passed its peak, and 3) settling these cases seems to have helped foreign competitors much more than American consumers. Consider the effects of the RCA, Xerox, IBM, AT&T, and Microsoft suits summarized in an op-ed written for RealClearMarkets.
Read the op-ed.
