Ownership

Google’s plan to lower the risk of another privacy gaffe is likely to disrupt business for scores of app developers that build services using the wealth of data generated by the world’s most popular email service. The Alphabet unit said it is reining in the data it makes available to outside developers of Gmail apps as part of a broader effort to secure the privacy of its users.

We’re all falling for Alexa, unless we’re falling for Google Assistant, or Siri, or some other genie in a smart speaker. Privacy concerns have not stopped the march of these devices into our homes, however. Amazon, Google, and other tech corporations have grand ambitions. They want to colonize everyday space. The company that succeeds in cornering the smart-speaker market will lock appliance manufacturers, app designers, and consumers into its ecosystem of devices and services, just as Microsoft tethered the personal-computer industry to its operating system in the 1990s. 

The application of antitrust policy, through which the government seeks to shape the general rules of competition, has always been contentious. But for roughly 40 years there has been a consensus that its ultimate goal should be the welfare of consumers, broadly defined to mean maximizing overall economic growth.

The trend of people cutting their home Internet connections in favor of wireless online connectivity is accelerating, according to the latest survey from Pew Research. No doubt fed by falling prices for wireless service and the spread of unlimited data plans, Internet cord cutting has now reached one in five Americans, almost double the level of two years ago. The percentage of people who say they depend solely on their smartphones to connect to the Internet has risen steadily from 8% in 2013, to 12% in 2016, to 20% in 2018.

The Federal Communications Commission’s lone administrative law judge has still not weighed in as to whether he will shut down the designated hearing on allegations that Sinclair Broadcast Group misled the agency about its proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media, leaving that serious “lack of candor” charge hanging over the company. It has been more than 10 weeks since the FCC unanimously voted to refer the deal to Judge Richard Sippel, signaling it had issues with how Sinclair represented the spinoff stations in the deal.

At the Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing on Oct 3, Department of Justice antitrust chief Makan Delrahim teased that the DOJ is wrapping up what it bills as a first-ever criminal case against the anticompetitive use of search algorithms in a "price-fixing scheme." Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked about search algorithms used by companies "like Google or Yelp!" that use algorithms that can have "profound market effects," like disadvantaging less tech-savvy small businesses by "guiding users away from the best option at the cheapest price." He asked what resources Delrahim had to scruti

The Antitrust Division has been extraordinarily busy in our daily efforts to protect consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs through sound and vigorous antitrust enforcement and competition advocacy throughout the government.  Apart from our direct enforcement efforts, the Division has implemented a wide range of initiatives designed to advance competition both nationally and internationally.  These efforts do not always draw the same interest as our enforcement cases, but can be just as essential, if not more so, to our efforts to protect American consumers and businesses.  

In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons described the agency's enforcement of antitrust laws, advocacy work, and the public hearings it is hosting on a variety of competition and consumer protection issues. And he outlined a series of notable victories in stopping anticompetitive mergers and conduct. The widespread use of technology and data often offer consumer benefits, but may also raise new competition issues, according to the testimony.