Senator Hawley’s ‘trust-busting’ bill would actually bust consumers and small business

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced legislation he dubbed the “Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act.” It has no cosponsors and no companion bill in the House of Representatives. Perhaps others in Congress are skeptical. If they are, it would be for good reason: The proposed law would damage the people it purports to help. [...]

Journalism preservation is based on misinformation

According to members of Congress, American journalism is on the ropes. “Newspapers are locked in a life-or-death struggle with tech giants,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). “We have seen thousands of news organizations crushed by the monopolistic power of Big Tech,” according to Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO). And Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) argued “media outlets [...]

Antitrust cases could be bad for iPhone users

iPhone users are likely to be the unintended victims of some current antitrust activities: The US Department of Justice and some state attorneys general are targeting Apple’s contracts with Google. The contracts have Apple preinstalling some Google apps and making Google Search the default search engine on iPhones. Several state legislatures and the European Union [...]

Free speech in the digital age: Assessing the values and consequences of free expression

Does free speech apply to all corners of society, including the internet? The Constitution prohibits Congress from making any law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” and, since the 1960s, courts have interpreted this as an expansive right of individuals and institutions with few exceptions. However, public support for free speech seems [...]

What the leaked FTC memos on Google really teach us

Politico did well for itself in producing five articles based on leaked internal Federal Trade Commission (FTC) documents related to the agency’s decision not to pursue an antitrust case against Google eight years ago. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) The articles tell a story of FTC lawyers, Facebook, and Amazon warning political appointees [...]