May 2008

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

Assuming that Saturday's public walkaway by Microsoft doesn't prove just to be a high-risk negotiation tactic against Yahoo -- after all, the companies are rumored to have been talking about some sort of merger or acquisition for almost three years -- then what we have is a software vendor suddenly awash in tens of billions of unspent dollars that it can now lavish on other Internet firms. What companies could Microsoft target? AOL; LinkedIn; ValueClick.

[Commentary] The time has come for the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities to rescue its leading newspapers -- resources almost as vital to higher education's purpose as libraries, laboratories, classrooms, and concert halls. The plan I have in mind would call upon the richest institutions to set aside 3 percent of their endowments to buy The New York Times. That's for a start. Additional purchases of other newspapers by other endowments should follow. Never has the need to protect journalism as the source of current knowledge been more evident than now. Surveys of Americans unearth disturbing shards of information: Many cannot name a single U.S. Supreme Court justice; some do not read a single nonfiction book a year. Higher-education institutions and newspapers have an essential bond -- a dedication to the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge -- that makes them mutually dependent. Over the years newspapers have generally defended colleges and universities as sanctuaries for the exchange of ideas -- no matter how repugnant some of those ideas may be -- and championed expenditures on education. Now it's time for higher education, specifically the nation's wealthiest institutions, to come to the aid of newspapers.
http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i35/35a03201.htm

MCSLARROW: NET NEUTRALITY LAW NOT NEEDED
Congress should refrain from adopting a Network Neutrality law because cable operators are managing their broadband networks in an open manner and do not engage in anticompetitive conduct, National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow plans to say in testimony Tuesday on Capitol Hill. McSlarrow is scheduled to testify before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on Network Neutrality legislation introduced by subcommittee chairman Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA). McSlarrow suggests that legislation would be inappropriate because supporters of a net neutrality law have failed to make the case that broadband network operators have engaged in conduct harmful to consumers, justifying the need for government intervention.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6557729.html?nid=4262