Columbia law professor Tim Wu on The Curse of Bigness, neo-Brandeisian antitrust, and the lessons we should learn from the first Gilded Age.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (December 9-16)
Congress misses an opportunity to scrutinize Google; the IRS is on life support; Johnson & Johnson reportedly knew for decades that its baby powder contained asbestos; the British Labour Party considers a break-up of the Big Four accounting firms; and will Obamacare once again be upheld by the Supreme Court?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (December 2-9)
Documents released by British Parliament show Facebook’s attempts to stifle competition; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau no longer protects consumers; provider consolidation is driving up US health care costs; and how big really is America’s digital divide?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (November 11-18)
Facebook’s latest scandal leads lawmakers to proclaim: “Big tech can no longer be trusted”; New Yorkers vow to resist Amazon’s HQ2 deal; monopolization is undermining public faith in capitalism; and why are US drug prices so high?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (October 27-November 4)
Facebook is still open to manipulation by malicious political actors; the dialysis industry has spent over $100 million to fight a ballot measure that seeks to regulate it; AT&T does everything it promised not to do in its defense of the Time Warner merger; and can tech workers help police their own employers?
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Brazil’s Election Is Yet Another Indication That Facebook Is Too Big to Manage
Facebook’s failure to curb the massive disinformation campaign that preceded Jair Bolsonaro’s election victory shows that it is unable to control the dangerous consequences of its own dominance.
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Digital Platforms’ Targeting Tools Are Opaque and Potentially Dangerous
A lawsuit claims that Facebook inflated video metrics to lure advertisers. Facebook denies, but it’s worth noting that it would be much easier for Facebook to defraud advertisers than for any of its predecessors in traditional media.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (October 14-20)
Facebook’s WhatsApp finds itself at the center of Brazil’s political upheaval; the EU is pushing ahead with its planned tax on tech platforms; Trump’s replacement for NAFTA entrenches tech monopolies; and why does Uber love economists?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (October 1-7)
Brazil’s business community rallies around far-right authoritarian; Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh enters the Supreme Court; Amazon raises its minimum wage to $15 an hour; Germany expects to take antitrust action against Facebook this year; and the IRS’ pursuit of tax crimes reportedly faces collapse.
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (September 22–29)
Facebook’s bad week included a new security breach, high-profile resignations and damaging exposés; tech giants are spending billions on physical infrastructure and lobbying for new federal privacy rules; and what is Google trying to achieve with its sponsorship of media organizations?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (September 7–16)
Is the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis responsible for the rise of populism in the US and Europe?; the real Google censorship scandal is its re-entry into China; Europe’s new controversial copyright law could change the Internet; and can Facebook unbreak democracy?
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Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (September 1–7)
Google skips Congressional hearing, potentially making a “strategic mistake of virtually incalculable proportions”; Jon Kyl’s “ethical baggage”; new research finds telecom companies are slowing Internet traffic to and from YouTube and Netflix; and where do economists stand on market concentration?
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