Antitrust Issues Raised by the Emerging Global Internet Economy

The Internet economy is likely to raise antitrust concerns -- and possible demands for regulation -- for years to come. Global gargantuan firms have emerged, which will likely attract scrutiny by competition authorities and by policymakers concerned with competition issues. The web economy poses two major challenges to competition authorities. The law and economics for analyzing the multi-sided platforms that dominate the Internet sector is not well developed. At the same time the web-economy is evolving very rapidly and in ways that are sure to result in antitrust complaints and investigations. Competition authorities and courts will need to exercise great care in balancing the protection of consumers from anticompetitive behavior against causing harm from interfering in complex businesses that are both rapidly moving and not fully understood.
http://colloquy.law.northwestern.edu/main/2008/05/antitrust-issue.html