The Digital Economy

A United States federal court has found Google in breach of the Sherman Act by pursuing default status for Google Search and Google Chrome. However, Google's motives and the precise ways in which Google Search’s default status serves its interests remain poorly understood by the public and the antitrust community. They pertain to preventing users from migrating to competitors’ offerings in general and, in particular, to capturing user migration to next-generation platforms to access and search the internet. Understanding this motive will be essential in the calibration of forthcoming remedies and provide lessons for future cases against Google and other tech companies also confronted with user migration.

Judge Amit Mehta's ruling declaring Google a monopolist in search represents a significant development in the ongoing debate about Big Tech's market dominance. This decision, stemming from a United States Department of Justice lawsuit, highlights the culmination of years of discussions and research on antitrust issues in the technology sector, particularly surrounding Google's search practices.

In new research, Shaoor Munir, Konrad Kollnig, Anastasia Shuba and Zubair Shafi explore how Google uses its web browser, Chrome, to maintain its dominance in other online markets, particularly advertising and search. Their findings contribute to an ecosystem analysis of Google’s anticompetitive behavior.

The following is an excerpt from Herbert Hovenkamp's new book, “Tech Monopoly,” now out at MIT Press.

Roslyn Layton discusses the major outage caused by a software update from CrowdStrike. Layton explores the debate between the risks of concentrated IT security solutions as well as their benefits. She discusses the market response to the incident and examines potential solutions, including AI-driven testing and incremental rollouts, while arguing against government intervention as a fix.

The Domain Name System (DNS), a 1985 technical invention, was transformed into critical global infrastructure by the policies of the United States government beginning in the 1990’s. While some challenges remain, the light-touch regulation promoted by both parties has proven highly successful.

Roslyn Layton highlights a recent data breach that exposed the personal information of millions of customers, including those who never directly used Ticketmaster's services, underscoring concerns about the company's data collection practices and market dominance.

ProMarket Student Editor Surya Gowda speaks with Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow Katie J. Wells about her new book with Kafui Attoh and Declan Cullen, Disrupting D.C.: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City. Wells discusses how Uber stepped in to solve local government failures, but introduced new problems in the process.

The following is a transcript of Randy Picker's conversation with Tim Wu on how antitrust shaped competition and innovation in computers and chips, held at the 2024 Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference.

According to a poll conducted by ProMarket at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference, experts were skeptical about the Department of Justice's antitrust case against Apple, with 54% believing it had the lowest odds among the five Big Tech antitrust cases of a ruling in favor of the government. In contrast, the experts were more optimistic about the government's chances in the Google AdTech case, with 52% saying it had the best odds for a government win, and another 21% favoring the Google Search case.