The Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google will not stop Big Tech’s abuses

The abusive practices of the dominant digital platforms are so widespread and have become so embedded that there is no single solution. What is needed is a cocktail of remedies that blends antitrust with ongoing regulatory oversight. The digital-oversight cocktail, therefore, needs to include the ability to establish industry-wide behavioral rules in addition to antitrust enforcement. Historically, the federal government has established a specialized agency to deal with new and specialized circumstances created by new technology, from the regulation of nuclear safety to highway safety to financial markets. The Federal Communications Commission, for instance, was established to oversee the new technology of broadcasting. While the House report encourages expansion of the FTC’s authority, we have reached the point in our digital trajectory where we need a new regulatory agency with digital DNA. The federal government has become proficient at doing again what it did yesterday. These policies and procedures, however, have been ambushed by the future. Yes, antitrust reform and enforcement is important. But if we’re really serious about returning competition and consumer protect to the digital economy, it’s simply not enough to look backward and redress a harm that has already occurred. We need to couple antitrust with a new vehicle for public-interest oversight to prevent abuses in the first place.