Weak antitrust enforcement set the stage for Facebook and Google to extract the fruits of publishers’ labor. We won’t be able to save journalism and solve our disinformation problem unless we weaken monopolies’ power.
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Algorithms and AI Are Radically Changing Insurance. Regulators Are Behind the Curve
The growing use of artificial intelligence to price insurance could erode basic legal protections built into the law to protect both individuals and the insurance market. To prevent discrimination and ensure fairness, regulators must begin to develop new capacities and tools.
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Designating Tech Platforms as “Information Fiduciaries” Would Do Little to Address the Source of Their Power
The notion that Facebook, Google, and Twitter should be assigned fiduciary duties toward their end users has gained broad support in recent years. However, this proposed framework invites policy misfires since it fails to grapple with the structural dimensions of tech platforms’ power.
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Antitrust Alone Is Not Enough to Combat the Problems Associated With Digital Platforms
Digital platforms present an enforcement challenge sufficiently daunting that it requires major reforms to antitrust law. But in order to restore lost competition, we need more than antitrust reform; we need better regulators. And for both, we need Congress to act.
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“Facebook Is Unaccountable to Shareholders, to its Users, to Government”
At the Stigler Center’s annual competition conference, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for the unwinding of Facebook’s WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions and the creation of a new regulatory agency to oversee digital platforms.
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Managing the Economic and Social Impact of the Digital Revolution
The four reports that will be presented at the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms, Markets and Democracy conference offer a compelling case for regulatory action and a very powerful array of solutions.
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How to Protect Competition and Consumers in Digital Markets
While some markets may self-correct, rapid self-correction in markets dominated by large digital platforms is unlikely. The economy and market structure subcommittee of the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms Project proposes ways to reform antitrust law and regulation in order to adequately deliver competition to consumers.
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How to Protect the News Media in the Age of Digital Platforms
Digital platforms present a new formidable threat to the news media that market forces will not correct if left to their own devices. The media subcommittee of the Stigler Center’s Digital Platforms Project proposes ways to strengthen independent, strong, and rigorous accountability journalism.
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How to Mitigate the Political Impacts of Social Media and Digital Platform Concentration
Ahead of its annual conference on Digital Platforms, Markets and Democracy, the Stigler Center formed a committee to produce independent white papers that will inform policymakers on how to address the political and economic issues raised by tech platforms. In preparation for the conference, we are publishing the executive summary of each preliminary report.
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Restoring Antimonopoly Through Bright-Line Rules
The “consumer welfare” approach to antimonopoly is the main contributor to the extreme and dangerous concentrations of power that Americans face today. In place of this vague, subjective, easily manipulated, and fundamentally corrupt framework, we propose a system of simple rules that is true to the original American approach to building and protecting an open and democratic society.
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When We Outsource Privacy Compliance, We May Undermine Privacy Protection
Privacy law is currently being shaped and implemented by a new industry of third-party tech vendors. These companies code their own interpretations of privacy laws into the designs of their products, but many are doing so without legal expertise.
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The Anticompetitive Effects of Current Capital Regulation
Some features of the capital regulation that was designed to increase the safety of the financial system may have unintended consequences on the competitive environment, argues new study.
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