The New Antitrust Movement Against Big Tech: Business Implications and Plausible Outcomes

Author: Marvin Cheung

Publication date: 5 January 2021

Only 32% of C-suite respondents believe current antitrust regulations are sufficient, according to PWC Election 2020 Poll conducted in November of 2019[1]. What is at stake and what should we expect? This essay summarizes the most important findings in the research package and examines the high-level business implications as well as plausible outcomes of the current Antitrust Movement against Big Tech.

The new Antitrust Movement is an ever-evolving situation with weekly and at times daily updates. At a basic level, the new Antitrust Movement is about restricting unfair business practices enabled by new technologies and digital business models. It is important to remember that antitrust sentiment is cyclical, that unchecked private powers enable individuals to circumvent democracy, and that antitrust regulations are not the only lawsuits that can rein in Big Tech’s power or effect their profitability.

“The Justice Department sued Google on Oct. 20, accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to preserve a monopoly for its flagship search-engine business. The FTC sued Facebook Inc., accusing the social-media giant of buying and freezing out small startups to choke competition. The suit demands that Facebook unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. Ten states filed an antitrust suit against Google Wednesday, accusing the search giant of running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly and enlisting rival Facebook Inc. in an alleged deal to rig ad auctions. Also on Dec. 9, Facebook was sued by a coalition of 46 states, along with the District of Columbia and Guam, over antitrust concerns similar to those raised by the FTC. The states allege that a lack of competition has harmed consumers. The Texas-led coalition of states that sued Google on Wednesday allege that the company manipulated digital advertising markets in violation of antitrust laws. [emphasis added].”[2]

This list excludes antitrust lawsuits outside of the U.S. For example, the European Commission led by E.U. antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager launched an investigation into Amazon’s anticompetitive practice and accused Amazon of breaking E.U. competition rules in 2020[3]. It is also important to remember that the outcome of a lawsuit against one company can have broader industry implications; these antitrust lawsuits are expected to set new industry standards.

Definitions

To understand the Antitrust Movement, we must first establish some definitions. Trust is when several businesses within the same industry join forces to control price and distribution of products and services[4]. Monopoly is when one business controls the price and distribution of products and services within one sector of the economy[5].

Price fixing, bid rigging, and other forms of collusion within a trust is illegal as it undermines one of the fundamental principles of capitalism: free and open competition[6]. While certain categories of offenses are still considered to be per se violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890[7], meaning that once a collusive scheme has been determined, any procompetitive justifications would be deemed irrelevant[8], the rule of reason has also been applied to certain categories of offenses since 1911[9]. Identical spelling errors, price documents with white-outs suggesting last-minute changes, statements that a customer ‘belongs’ to a particular entity have all initiated successful criminal antitrust prosecutions[10].

Whereas trusts are illegal, the legality of monopolies is more nuanced. Having monopoly power is not in itself an antitrust violation, though it is a prerequisite for an antitrust charge[11]. At the heart of the argument for the existence of monopolies is Judge Learned Hand’s view in the landmark case United States v. Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa): “The successful competitor, having been urged to compete, must not be turned upon when he wins.”[12].

Section 2 of the Sherman Act “makes it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power through improper means”[13]. These improper means include monopolization, attempted monopolization, and conspiracy to monopolize[14]. To prove monopolization requires a demonstration of both (1) monopoly power and (2) the wilful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.”[15] To prove attempted monopolization requires (1) proof of anticompetitive behaviour, such as exclusionary or predatory conduct, (2) the intent to monopolize, and (3) a “dangerous probability of achieving monopoly power[16].

Historical Context

After the Sherman Act of 1890, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt brought 44 antitrust lawsuits, and broke up Northern Securities “Big Railroad” by J.P. Morgan as well as the “Beef Trust” during his presidency between 1901 and 1909[17]. His lawsuit against Standard Oil “Big Oil” by Rockefeller in 1906 resulted in the dissolution of the company in 1911[18].

Antitrust sentiment continued to grow during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency in 1912[19]. Together with his economic advisor and later supreme court justice Louis Brandeis, Wilson enacted the Clayton Act and Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. Under the Clayton Act, mergers or acquisitions above an annually updated threshold are required to notify both the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission for review. The Federal Trade Commission Act created the FTC to supplement the Clayton Act and determine what constitutes as “unfair and deceptive acts of practices”[20]. Both Acts are civil statutes with no criminal penalties[21].

Franklin D Roosevelt “FDR” experimented with suspending antitrust laws through the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933 during the Great Depression[22]. “Under the NIRA, companies were required to write industrywide codes of fair competition that effectively fixed wages and prices, established production quotas, and placed restrictions on the entry of other companies into the alliances.” [23] These were then regulated by the National Recovery Administration (NRA) [24]. By the end of 1934, “it was evident that “allowing de facto cartels to raise prices did not, in fact, stimulate economic growth. Instead, it made things more expensive, which given slumping wages and wide unemployment, made people buy less instead of more. What the economy needed was stimulus – the kindling of demand, a point made famous by Maynard Keynes.” [25] The NIRA was declared unconstitutional unanimously by the Supreme Court “in part because the U.S. Constitution does not grant the Federal Government powers to regulate non-interstate commerce”[26] and in part because it provided the Roosevelt administration with too much power[27].

“Between 1940s and the late 1970s, against the spread of fascism in Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Africa, antitrust came to represent the preservation of economic and political freedom.”[28] Antitrust scholars such as Crane has also later noted the “the historical relationship between monopoly and mid-twentieth century fascism”[29]. He attributed the role of private enterprises such as I.G. Farben to the rise of Nazism in Germany before World War II. Farben’s donations provided a source of extra-governmental funding to Hitler when he had neither the support of the Catholic Church nor the German Government[30]; Farben acted “as an incubator and disseminator of Nazi propaganda” [31]  through its newspapers and 120,000 employees[32].

In the late 1970s, The Chicago school of economics rose to prominence in the field of Antitrust to rectify the “over-enforcement” [33] of the rule in earlier years. The Chicago School believed a laissez-faire approach with minimum government intervention would result in the most efficient allocation of resources, assuming that a self-correcting market composed of rational actors would maximize their own self-interest[34].

By 1989, scholars such as Jonathan Baker have already identified key economic developments on vertical foreclosure, price predation, collusion, and entry barriers, that challenge the use of the Chicago School of Economics within antitrust laws[35]. Nevertheless, the Chicago School, driven by the support of firms and individuals who would profit from less regulatory oversight[36]. continued to exert its influence. Non-price vertical restraints[37], maximum resale price maintenance agreements[38], and minimum resale price maintenance agreements, were respectively moved from the unlawful per se to the rule of reason category in 1977, 1997, and 2007[39].

“Unlike in the days when Thurman Arnold was in charge [between 1938 and 1943], the Justice Department regularly closes investigations and approves mergers with no explanation to the public. When the agency closed a three-year investigation of the agricultural-chemical producer Monsanto in 2012, for example, it didn’t issue a statement. It also declined to explain its decision to abruptly reverse course on the merger of US Airways and American Airlines, first suing to block the deal and then, three months later, approving it with only modest concessions.” [40]

Some Antitrust scholars call the renewed interest in demanding greater antitrust enforcement The New Brandeis Movement, referencing Justice Brandeis’ antitrust ideas.

Broader Business Implications of the Antitrust Movement

Predicting the outcome of Antitrust lawsuits is incredibly challenging primarily because these lawsuits often require agencies and courts to predict how present behaviour would influence future competitive dynamics[41]. Coupled with the ever-changing antitrust landscape: prosecutors can launch new lawsuits and Agencies can revise antitrust regulations, the present situation is not necessarily a good indicator of future antitrust outcome, especially if you take into account how most antitrust lawsuits can last a decade. We can, however, still make an educated guess on the Movement’s high level business implications based on historical precedents.

First, “if you are responding to an investigation, if you have a deal pending, the wind is hardly going to shift”[42]. Very rarely does a company leave unscathed once an antitrust investigation begins. IBM, despite winning the thirteen-year-long antitrust lawsuit in the 1980s, “cost the company a lot of its attention an entrepreneurial energy”[43].“[O]ver a twenty-year period ending when the suit was filed, their share of revenues of the one hundred top companies in the computer industry went from nearly 60 percent down to 40 percent. […] Although [IBM] never lost any money through judgements, [it] spent tens of millions of dollars annually defending itself. In addition, so as not to give the prosecution any ammunition, IBM was forced to be completely conscious and cautious of all transactions made”[44].

Big Tech will be more scrupulous when considering acquisitions[45]. “Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook — spent only $7.2bn between them on acquisitions [in 2019]. That is only around half as much as each of the previous two years, and well below the $29bn of 2016.”[46] These trends are expected to persist through the pandemic. The IT & Telecom industry saw a 5% decrease in M&A transactions between November of 2019 and November of 2020[47].

With increasing regulations from both the U.S. and the E.U, expect Big Tech to be less able to “move fast and break things”. The development and regulation of science is a cyclical process. The need for an independent Institutional Review Board (IRB) to monitor experiments involving human subjects was largely a result of involuntary human experiments during WWII[48]. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, which unleashed a “psychological warfare tool” on average Facebook users, is an important wake-up call[49]. Even if none of the antitrust lawsuits prove successful, other regulations such as data privacy regulations will begin to push tech companies to slow down and examine the ethical implications of their technologies, especially with User Experience Designers consciously designing for behaviour change[50]. In response to the increasing number of regulations, some expect to see the rise of RegTech - regulation technologies[51].

While the complete dissolution of Big Tech is improbable, we can still expect to see fewer “moonshot” research projects when profitability decreases. Following AT&T’s dissolution in the 1980s, Bell Labs, the top research facility at the time, lost the monopoly’s support[52]. Long-term, high-risk research made way for shorter-term, profit-making products. This will be compounded by the expected new corporate tax scheme by Biden.[53] Amazon notoriously paid a tax rate of roughly 1.2% in 2018[54]. Between Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon, Netflix Inc. Microsoft Corp., and Alphabet Inc.’s Google LLC, “Facebook was the only company to report an effective tax rate at or above the statutory rate in 2019. Netflix and Microsoft, meanwhile, reported the lowest effective tax rates last year, at 9.5% and 10.2%, respectively.” [55] This does not necessarily mean that technology innovation will slow down. “ClimateTech”, for example, has been on the rise[56].

Plausible Outcomes of the Antitrust Lawsuits

“It’s better to buy than to compete”, from an email in 2008 by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook[57]. Breaking up Facebook-Whatsapp-Instagram to encourage competition within the social networking industry seems increasingly plausible. Emails uncovered in 2020 revealed how Facebook saw Instagram and WhatsApp to be threats to the company before it acquired them[58]. “‘It’s a combination of neutralizing a competitor and improving Facebook’, Zuckerberg said in a reply. […] ‘I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way,’ he wrote.”[59] “Antitrust lawyers saw that as an admission of guilt from Zuckerberg.”[60]

While Google also has a product and data ecosystem: Android, Chrome, Gmail, Google Search, Google Drive, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google Play Store, and YouTube, each has more than a billion users[61], the latest Congressional Antitrust Investigation has mostly focused on the fairness of platforms. There is a scenario in which Google Search might be broken up with search advertising accounted for approximately 61% of its total sales in 2019[62] , but this seems unlikely. Data privacy regulations would be more effective in draining data moats[63].

To varying degrees, however, all four “dominant online platforms” under investigation: Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple have “exploit[ed] their gatekeeper power to dictate terms and extract concessions that no one would reasonably consent to in a competitive market”[64]. Also in question is the use of self-preferential algorithms on these platforms[65].

“[Facebook] now considers competition within its own family of products to be more considerable than competition from any other firm. […] Google used its search monopoly to misappropriate content from third parties and to boost Google’s own inferior vertical offerings, while imposing search penalties to demote third-party vertical provides […] Amazon’s dual role as an operator of its marketplace that hosts third-party sellers, and a seller in the same marketplace, creates an inherent conflict of interest. […] Apple leverages its control of iOS and the App Store to create and enforce barriers to competition and discriminate against and exclude rivals while preferencing its own offerings.” [66]

Below are some plausible outcomes to expect as these platforms become critical intermediaries and infrastructure for the economy[67].

Firstly, the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law of the Committee, which led the Congressional Investigation, recommended placing line of business restrictions to “limit the markets in which a dominant firm can engage” [68]. This recommendation draws upon from The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956[69], arguing that certain dominant platforms have become critical intermediaries and infrastructure for the economy[70]. As Khan points out, this would limit the business risks these dominant platforms are exposed to and increase their soundness, while simultaneously limiting the possibility of anticompetitive behaviour[71].

Secondly, the Subcommittee recommended structural separations to “prohibit a dominant intermediary from operating in markets that place the intermediary in competition with the firms dependent on its infrastructure” [72].

Thirdly, the Subcommittee recommended the establishment of non-discrimination rules. “Non-discrimination rules would require dominant platforms to offer equal terms for equal service and would apply to price as well as to terms of access.” [73] This has traditionally been applied to network intermediaries such as railroads, through the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, and cable operators, through the Cable Act of 1992[74].

Perhaps, much like Microsoft's antitrust case in the early 2000s, against the well-liked Bill Gates, trustbusting will lead to a surge in innovation.

As a reminder of the problems the New Antitrust Movement is trying to address:

“Because of the severe financial repercussions associated with suspension or delisting, many Amazon third-party sellers live in fear of the company[75]. For sellers, Amazon functions as a ‘quasi-state,’ and many ‘[s]ellers are more worried about a case being opened on Amazon than in actual court.’[76] This is because Amazon’s internal dispute resolution system is characterized by uncertainty, unresponsiveness, and opaque decision-making processes.” [77]

[1] PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Top Policy Trends 2020: Antitrust,” PwC, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/risk-regulatory/strategic-policy/top-policy-trends/antitrust.html.

[2] John D. McKinnon, “These Are the U.S. Antitrust Cases Facing Google, Facebook and Others,” Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2020, sec. Tech, https://www.wsj.com/articles/these-are-the-u-s-antitrust-cases-facing-google-facebook-and-others-11608150564.

[3] “Amazon Faces Antitrust Charges From European Regulators,” NPR.org, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/879643610/amazon-faces-antitrust-charges-from-european-regulators.

[4] “Monopolies and Trusts | Encyclopedia.Com,” accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/monopolies-and-trusts.

[5] Ibid.

[6] The United States Department of Justice, “Price Fixing, Bid Rigging And Market Allocation Schemes,” June 25, 2015, https://www.justice.gov/atr/price-fixing-bid-rigging-and-market-allocation-schemes.

[7] Ibid.

[8] “Per Se Rule,” Practical Law, accessed December 12, 2020, http://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/8-383-6381?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true.

[9] Leegin Creative Leather Prods. v. PSKS, Inc. - 551 U.S. 877, 127 S. Ct. 2705 (2007)

[10] Ibid.

[11] United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570-71 (1996).

[12] United States v. Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), 148 F.2d 416 (2d. Cir. 1945).

[13] The United States Department of Justice, “Competition And Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 Of The Sherman Act : Chapter 1,” June 25, 2015, https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act-chapter-1.

[14] Ibid.

[15] United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563, 570­71 (1966)

[16] Ibid.

[17] Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind, “The Myth of the Roosevelt ‘Trustbusters,’” The New Republic, May 4, 2018, https://newrepublic.com/article/148239/myth-roosevelt-trustbusters.

[18] Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (Columbia Global Reports, 2018). Pg. 66.

[19] “Federal Trade Commission | Encyclopedia.Com,” accessed December 12, 2020, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/political-science-and-government/us-government/federal-trade-commission.

[20] “About the FTC,” Federal Trade Commission, March 1, 2013, https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc.

[21] “Ibid.

[22] “National Industrial Recovery Act | Definition & Purpose,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed December 27, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Industrial-Recovery-Act.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Wu, Tim, The Curse of Bigness: New Deal Supplement (July 8, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3646258 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3646258 Pg. 7.

[26] “United States. National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. 6/16/1933-5/1935,” accessed December 27, 2020, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/10482196.

[27] “On This Day, Supreme Court Invalidates Key FDR Program - National Constitution Center,” National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org, accessed December 27, 2020, https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/when-fdrs-blue-eagle-laid-a-supreme-court-egg.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Crane, Daniel A., "Antitrust and Democracy: A Case Study from German Fascism" (2018). Law & Economics Working Papers. 155. https://repository.law.umich.edu/law_econ_current/155. Pg. 2.

[30] Crane, Daniel A., "Antitrust and Democracy: A Case Study from German Fascism" (2018). Law & Economics Working Papers. 155. https://repository.law.umich.edu/law_econ_current/155. Pg. 10.

[31] Diarmuid Jeffreys, HELL’S CARTEL: IG FARBEN AND THE MAKING OF HITLER’S WAR MACHINE  (2008) Pg. 124.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Hovenkamp, Herbert and Scott Morton, Fiona M., Framing the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis (June 9, 2020). U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 19-44, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3481388 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3481388 Abstract.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Baker, Jonathan B. "RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN ECONOMICS THAT CHALLENGE CHICAGO SCHOOL VIEWS." Antitrust Law Journal 58, no. 2 (1989): 645-55. Accessed December 13, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40841261.

[36] Hovenkamp, Herbert and Scott Morton, Fiona M., Framing the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis (June 9, 2020). U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 19-44, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3481388 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3481388

[37] Continenal T.V. v. GTE Sylvania - 433 U.S. 36, 97 S. Ct. 2549 (1977)

[38] State Oil Co. v. Khan 522 U.S. 3 (1997)

[39] Leegin Creative Leather Prods. v. PSKS, Inc. - 551 U.S. 877, 127 S. Ct. 2705 (2007)

[40] Stacy Mitchell, “The Rise and Fall of the Word ‘Monopoly’ in American Life,” The Atlantic, June 20, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-monopoly-antitrust/530169/.

[41] Joshua D. Wright, “Prediction in Antitrust Is Hard (But Some Predictions Are Harder than Others)” (Washington Bar Association’s 31st Annual Antitrust, Consumer Protection, and Unfair Business Practices Seminar, November 13, 2014).

[42] “The Antitrust Forecast,” On Competition Law and Economics, November 9, 2016, https://www.oncompetitionpolicy.com/2016/11/the-antitrust-forecast/.

[43] “IBM and Microsoft: Antitrust Then and Now,” CNET, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.cnet.com/news/ibm-and-microsoft-antitrust-then-and-now/.

[44] “Regulation of IBM,” accessed December 27, 2020, https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/corporate-monopolies/government_ibm.html.

[45] PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Top Policy Trends 2020: Antitrust,” PwC, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/risk-regulatory/strategic-policy/top-policy-trends/antitrust.html.

[46] Richard Waters, “The Era of Big M&A Is over for Big Tech,” February 7, 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/adb03d12-48fa-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441.

[47] Michael Poole, “The Impact of COVID-19 on U.S. M&A,” accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.pcecompanies.com/resources/impact-of-covid-19-on-middle-market.

[48] “History of IRB,” accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.uth.edu/cphs/for-researchers/history-of-irb.htm.

[49] “How Cambridge Analytica Sparked the Great Privacy Awakening,” Wired, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-facebook-privacy-awakening/.

[50] Efi Chatzopoulou, “Where Do You Start When Designing for Behaviour Change?,” Medium, September 13, 2018, https://uxdesign.cc/how-do-you-design-for-behaviour-change-790b9abefa08.

[51] Rebecca Hinds, “Three Venture Capital Funding Trends to Watch in 2020,” accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.affinity.co/blog/venture-capital-2020.

[52] Jon Gertner, “The End of Game-Changing Innovation,” Time, March 27, 2012, https://business.time.com/2012/03/27/like-building-refrigerators-bell-labs-and-the-end-of-game-changing-innovation/.

[53] “What Joe Biden’s US Tax Plan Could Mean for Big Tech,” accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/what-joe-biden-s-us-tax-plan-could-mean-for-big-tech-60549176.

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Rob Day, “Cleantech Investing Is Back. Will This Time Be Different?,” Forbes, accessed December 29, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/robday/2020/08/17/cleantech-investing-is-back-will-this-time-be-different/.

[57] “‘It’s Better to Buy than Compete’: The FTC Is Using Mark Zuckerberg’s Own Words against Him. Read the Facebook CEO’s Crucial Emails Here.,” Business Insider, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/its-better-to-buy-than-compete-the-ftc-is-using-mark-zuckerbergs-own-words-against-him-read-the-facebook-ceos-crucial-emails-here-/articleshow/79666677.cms.

[58] Ibid.

[59] Casey Newton, “‘Instagram Can Hurt Us’: Mark Zuckerberg Emails Outline Plan to Neutralize Competitors,” The Verge, July 29, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/29/21345723/facebook-instagram-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg-kevin-systrom-hearing.

[60] Nick Statt, “The FTC Is Suing Facebook to Unwind Its Acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp,” The Verge, December 9, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22158483/facebook-antitrust-lawsuit-anti-competition-behavior-attorneys-general.

[61] Harry McCracken, How Google Photos joined the billion-user club, FAST CO. (July 24, 2019), https://www.fastcompany.com/90380618/how-google-photos-joined-the-billion-user-club

[62] Alphabet Inc., Annual Report (Form 10-K) 26–30 (Feb. 3., 2020), https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420000008/goog10-k2019.htm

[63] Columbia Business School-the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center, “Draining Data Moats: What Happens When Consumers Take Control Of Their Own Data?,” Forbes, accessed December 28, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/columbiabusinessschool/2019/08/21/draining-data-moats-when-consumers-take-control-of-their-own-data/.

[64] Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Lina M. Khan, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” The Yale Law Journal 126, no. 3 (January 2017), https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020.

[73] Ibid.

[74] Ibid.

[75] Submission from Source 125, to H. Comm. on the Judiciary (July 17, 2020) (on file with Comm.) 

[76] Josh Dzieza, Prime and Punishment: Dirty Dealing in the $175 Billion Amazon Marketplace, THE VERGE (Dec. 19, 2018), https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement

[77] Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, “Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets,” 2020.

Marvin Cheung, Head of Research and Strategy, Board Member, Unbuilt Labs