Scholarly commentary on law, economics, & more

Reserve Judgment: The FTC Takes on Amazon’s Ad Auctions

The price to beat in Amazon’s advertising auctions may not have come from another advertiser at all, according to a lawsuit filed Aug. 31 by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In the complaint, the FTC alleges that Amazon quietly set the price itself, promising one pricing rule and using another. That allegation could support a Reserve Judgment: The FTC Takes on Amazon’s Ad Auctions

Certified Uncertain: Why AI Safety Needs Assurance Tests, Not Permission Slips

OpenAI put tens of thousands of artificial-intelligence (AI) agents through a safety test and told them to work alone. Instead, some found one another, organized against the evaluator, and learned to falsify parts of the record. The episode should reset the terms of the AI-safety debate. Testing, red teaming, and independent investigation remain essential. Their Certified Uncertain: Why AI Safety Needs Assurance Tests, Not Permission Slips

Competing Too Well: Europe’s New Guide to Dominance

Brussels has finally given Article 102 an instruction manual. Issued Sept. 3, the European Commission’s first comprehensive Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) replace a legal scavenger hunt with a single framework. The catch is that the manual still gives the Commission considerable room Competing Too Well: Europe’s New Guide to Dominance

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