Ahead of tomorrow’s House Judiciary Committee tech antitrust report markup, the Progressive Policy Institute’s Innovation Frontier Project has released a new paper outlining the strengths — and weaknesses — of the report, which ultimately misses the mark on digital regulations and might unintentionally hurt innovation in this vital American industry.
“The House Subcommittee has given us 400-plus pages of weak evidence that Big Tech companies actually harm consumers and reduce innovation in digital markets. On the contrary, the digital sector has been the most dynamic and productive sector of our economy for the last twenty years,” said Alec Stapp, Director of Technology Policy at PPI.
The report finds that the staff of the antitrust subcommittee has mostly missed the opportunity to grapple with the real problems arising from the tech sector. It has instead attempted to apply the static lessons of historical battles against monopoly to the fluid, fast-changing realities of digital innovation and competition today. The report offers scant evidence that major technology companies are actually suppressing competition or innovation in digital markets.
The report has pointed out legitimate issues involving use of data, arbitrary treatment of counter parties, and providing false information to regulators. But existing antitrust laws are adequate to handle these issues without invoking the drastic remedies discussed in the report. The answer, as it has been for over four decades, lies in an unbiased study of each market focused on how different actions affect consumer welfare. The House subcommittee report offers no compelling case for why that standard should be changed, and it fails to show how consumers have been harmed by the leading technology companies.
Report author Joe Kennedy is currently Senior Principal Economist for MITRE, Inc. He has spent 30 years working at the intersection of public policy and technology. Previous positions include Senior Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Chief Economist at the Department of Commerce, and General Counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Read the report here.
###
Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org