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Ten Reasons Why the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Is Going to Be a Dumpster Fire

Alec Stapp —  1 July 2019

Last year, real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart spent nearly $3.5 million to put a privacy law on the ballot in California’s November election. He then negotiated a deal with state lawmakers to withdraw the ballot initiative if they passed their own privacy bill. That law — the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — was enacted after only seven days of drafting and amending. CCPA will go into effect six months from today.

According to Mactaggart, it all began when he spoke with a Google engineer and was shocked to learn how much personal data the company collected. This revelation motivated him to find out exactly how much of his data Google had. Perplexingly, instead of using Google’s freely available transparency tools, Mactaggart decided to spend millions to pressure the state legislature into passing new privacy regulation.

The law has six consumer rights, including the right to know; the right of data portability; the right to deletion; the right to opt-out of data sales; the right to not be discriminated against as a user; and a private right of action for data breaches.

So, what are the law’s prospects when it goes into effect next year? Here are ten reasons why CCPA is going to be a dumpster fire.

1. CCPA compliance costs will be astronomical

“TrustArc commissioned a survey of the readiness of 250 firms serving California from a range of industries and company size in February 2019. It reports that 71 percent of the respondents expect to spend at least six figures in CCPA-related privacy compliance expenses in 2019 — and 19 percent expect to spend over $1 million. Notably, if CCPA were in effect today, 86 percent of firms would not be ready. An estimated half a million firms are liable under the CCPA, most of which are small- to medium-sized businesses. If all eligible firms paid only $100,000, the upfront cost would already be $50 billion. This is in addition to lost advertising revenue, which could total as much as $60 billion annually.” (AEI / Roslyn Layton)

2. CCPA will be good for Facebook and Google (and bad for small ad networks)

“It’s as if the privacy activists labored to manufacture a fearsome cannon with which to subdue giants like Facebook and Google, loaded it with a scattershot set of legal restrictions, aimed it at the entire ads ecosystem, and fired it with much commotion. When the smoke cleared, the astonished activists found they’d hit only their small opponents, leaving the giants unharmed. Meanwhile, a grinning Facebook stared back at the activists and their mighty cannon, the weapon that they had slyly helped to design.” (Wired / Antonio García Martínez)

“Facebook and Google ultimately are not constrained as much by regulation as by users. The first-party relationship with users that allows these companies relative freedom under privacy laws comes with the burden of keeping those users engaged and returning to the app, despite privacy concerns.” (Wired / Antonio García Martínez)

3. CCPA will enable free-riding by users who opt out of data sharing

“[B]y restricting companies from limiting services or increasing prices for consumers who opt-out of sharing personal data, CCPA enables free riders—individuals that opt out but still expect the same services and price—and undercuts access to free content and services. Someone must pay for free services, and if individuals opt out of their end of the bargain—by allowing companies to use their data—they make others pay more, either directly or indirectly with lower quality services. CCPA tries to compensate for the drastic reduction in the effectiveness of online advertising, an important source of income for digital media companies, by forcing businesses to offer services even though they cannot effectively generate revenue from users.” (ITIF / Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn)

4. CCPA is potentially unconstitutional as-written

“[T]he law potentially applies to any business throughout the globe that has/gets personal information about California residents the moment the business takes the first dollar from a California resident. Furthermore, the law applies to some corporate affiliates (parent, subsidiary, or commonly owned companies) of California businesses, even if those affiliates have no other ties to California. The law’s purported application to businesses not physically located in California raises potentially significant dormant Commerce Clause and other Constitutional problems.” (Eric Goldman)

5. GDPR compliance programs cannot be recycled for CCPA

“[C]ompanies cannot just expand the coverage of their EU GDPR compliance measures to residents of California. For example, the California Consumer Privacy Act:

  • Prescribes disclosures, communication channels (including toll-free phone numbers) and other concrete measures that are not required to comply with the EU GDPR.
  • Contains a broader definition of “personal data” and also covers information pertaining to households and devices.
  • Establishes broad rights for California residents to direct deletion of data, with differing exceptions than those available under GDPR.
  • Establishes broad rights to access personal data without certain exceptions available under GDPR (e.g., disclosures that would implicate the privacy interests of third parties).
  • Imposes more rigid restrictions on data sharing for commercial purposes.”

(IAPP / Lothar Determann)

6. CCPA will be a burden on small- and medium-sized businesses

“The law applies to businesses operating in California if they generate an annual gross revenue of $25 million or more, if they annually receive or share personal information of 50,000 California residents or more, or if they derive at least 50 percent of their annual revenue by “selling the personal information” of California residents. In effect, this means that businesses with websites that receive traffic from an average of 137 unique Californian IP addresses per day could be subject to the new rules.” (ITIF / Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn)

CCPA “will apply to more than 500,000 U.S. companies, the vast majority of which are small- to medium-sized enterprises.” (IAPP / Rita Heimes and Sam Pfeifle)

7. CCPA’s definition of “personal information” is extremely over-inclusive

“CCPA likely includes gender information in the “personal information” definition because it is “capable of being associated with” a particular consumer when combined with other datasets. We can extend this logic to pretty much every type or class of data, all of which become re-identifiable when combined with enough other datasets. Thus, all data related to individuals (consumers or employees) in a business’ possession probably qualifies as “personal information.” (Eric Goldman)

“The definition of “personal information” includes “household” information, which is particularly problematic. A “household” includes the consumer and other co-habitants, which means that a person’s “personal information” oxymoronically includes information about other people. These people’s interests may diverge, such as with separating spouses, multiple generations under the same roof, and roommates. Thus, giving a consumer rights to access, delete, or port “household” information affects other people’s information, which may violate their expectations and create major security and privacy risks.” (Eric Goldman)

8. CCPA penalties might become a source for revenue generation

“According to the new Cal. Civ. Code §1798.150, companies that become victims of data theft or other data security breaches can be ordered in civil class action lawsuits to pay statutory damages between $100 to $750 per California resident and incident, or actual damages, whichever is greater, and any other relief a court deems proper, subject to an option of the California Attorney General’s Office to prosecute the company instead of allowing civil suits to be brought against it.” (IAPP / Lothar Determann)

“According to the new Cal. Civ. Code §1798.155, companies can be ordered in a civil action brought by the California Attorney General’s Office to pay penalties of up to $7,500 per intentional violation of any provision of the California Consumer Privacy Act, or, for unintentional violations, if the company fails to cure the unintentional violation within 30 days of notice, $2,500 per violation under Section 17206 of the California Business and Professions Code. Twenty percent of such penalties collected by the State of California shall be allocated to a new “Consumer Privacy Fund” to fund enforcement.” (IAPP / Lothar Determann)

“[T]he Attorney General, through its support of SB 561, is seeking to remove this provision, known as a “30-day cure,” arguing that it would be able to secure more civil penalties and thus increase enforcement. Specifically, the Attorney General has said it needs to raise $57.5 million in civil penalties to cover the cost of CCPA enforcement.”  (ITIF / Daniel Castro and Alan McQuinn)

9. CCPA is inconsistent with existing privacy laws

“California has led the United States and often the world in codifying privacy protections, enacting the first laws requiring notification of data security breaches (2002) and website privacy policies (2004). In the operative section of the new law, however, the California Consumer Privacy Act’s drafters did not address any overlap or inconsistencies between the new law and any of California’s existing privacy laws, perhaps due to the rushed legislative process, perhaps due to limitations on the ability to negotiate with the proponents of the Initiative. Instead, the new Cal. Civ. Code §1798.175 prescribes that in case of any conflicts with California laws, the law that affords the greatest privacy protections shall control.” (IAPP / Lothar Determann)

10. CCPA will need to be amended, creating uncertainty for businesses

As of now, a dozen bills amending CCPA have passed the California Assembly and continue to wind their way through the legislative process. California lawmakers have until September 13th to make any final changes to the law before it goes into effect. In the meantime, businesses have to begin compliance preparations under a cloud of uncertainty about what the says today — or what it might even say in the future.

In Constitutional Law, Data Privacy & Security, European Union, Facebook, Google, International, Platforms, Truth on the Market, Twitter , , , , , , , , ,
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No, The FCC Should Not Have the Power to Cancel Contracts

Kristian Stout —  9 August 2016

Copyright law, ever a sore point in some quarters, has found a new field of battle in the FCC’s recent set-top box proposal. At the request of members of Congress, the Copyright Office recently wrote a rather thorough letter outlining its view of the FCC’s proposal on rightsholders.

In sum, the CR’s letter was an even-handed look at the proposal which concluded:

As a threshold matter, it seems critical that any revised proposal respect the authority of creators to manage the exploitation of their copyrighted works through private licensing arrangements, because regulatory actions that undermine such arrangements would be inconsistent with the rights granted under the Copyright Act.

This fairly uncontroversial statement of basic legal principle was met with cries of alarm. And Stanford’s CIS had a post from Affiliated Scholar Annemarie Bridy that managed to trot out breathless comparisons to inapposite legal theories while simultaneously misconstruing the “fair use” doctrine (as well as how Copyright law works in the video market, for that matter).

Look out! Lochner is coming!

In its letter the Copyright Office warned the FCC that its proposed rules have the potential to disrupt the web of contracts that underlie cable programming, and by extension, risk infringing the rights of copyright holders to commercially exploit their property. This analysis actually tracks what Geoff Manne and I wrote in both our initial comment and our reply comment to the set-top box proposal.

Yet Professor Bridy seems to believe that, notwithstanding the guarantees of both the Constitution and Section 106 of the Copyright Act, the FCC should have the power to abrogate licensing contracts between rightsholders and third parties.  She believes that

[t]he Office’s view is essentially that the Copyright Act gives right holders not only the limited range of rights enumerated in Section 106 (i.e., reproduction, preparation of derivative works, distribution, public display, and public performance), but also a much broader and more amorphous right to “manage the commercial exploitation” of copyrighted works in whatever ways they see fit and can accomplish in the marketplace, without any regulatory interference from the government.

What in the world does this even mean? A necessary logical corollary of the Section 106 rights includes the right to exploit works commercially as rightsholders see fit. Otherwise, what could it possibly mean to have the right to control the reproduction or distribution of a work? The truth is that Section 106 sets out a general set of rights that inhere in rightsholders with respect to their protected works, and that commercial exploitation is merely a subset of this total bundle of rights.

The ability to contract with other parties over these rights is also a necessary corollary of the property rights recognized in Section 106. After all, the right to exclude implies by necessity the right to include. Which is exactly what a licensing arrangement is.

But wait, there’s more — she actually managed to pull out the Lochner bogeyman to validate her argument!

The Office’s absolutist logic concerning freedom of contract in the copyright licensing domain is reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s now-infamous reasoning in Lochner v. New York, a 1905 case that invalidated a state law limiting maximum working hours for bakers on the ground that it violated employer-employee freedom of contract. The Court in Lochner deprived the government of the ability to provide basic protections for workers in a labor environment that subjected them to unhealthful and unsafe conditions. As Julie Cohen describes it, “‘Lochner’ has become an epithet used to characterize an outmoded, over-narrow way of thinking about state and federal economic regulation; it goes without saying that hardly anybody takes the doctrine it represents seriously.”

This is quite a leap of logic, as there is precious little in common between the letter from the Copyright Office and the Lochner opinion aside from the fact that both contain the word “contracts” in their pages.  Perhaps the most critical problem with Professor Bridy’s analogy is the fact that Lochner was about a legislature interacting with the common law system of contract, whereas the FCC is a body subordinate to Congress, and IP is both constitutionally and statutorily guaranteed. A sovereign may be entitled to interfere with the operation of common law, but an administrative agency does not have the same sort of legal status as a legislature when redefining general legal rights.

The key argument that Professor Bridy offered in support of her belief that the FCC should be free to abrogate contracts at will is that “[r]egulatory limits on private bargains may come in the form of antitrust laws or telecommunications laws or, as here, telecommunications regulations that further antitrust ends.”  However, this completely misunderstand U.S. constitutional doctrine.

In particular, as Geoff Manne and I discussed in our set-top box comments to the FCC, using one constitutional clause to end-run another constitutional clause is generally a no-no:

Regardless of whether or how well the rules effect the purpose of Sec. 629, copyright violations cannot be justified by recourse to the Communications Act. Provisions of the Communications Act — enacted under Congress’s Commerce Clause power — cannot be used to create an end run around limitations imposed by the Copyright Act under the Constitution’s Copyright Clause. “Congress cannot evade the limits of one clause of the Constitution by resort to another,” and thus neither can an agency acting within the scope of power delegated to it by Congress. Establishing a regulatory scheme under the Communications Act whereby compliance by regulated parties forces them to violate content creators’ copyrights is plainly unconstitutional.

Congress is of course free to establish the implementation of the Copyright Act as it sees fit. However, unless Congress itself acts to change that implementation, the FCC — or any other party — is not at liberty to interfere with rightsholders’ constitutionally guaranteed rights.

You Have to Break the Law Before You Raise a Defense

Another bone of contention upon which Professor Bridy gnaws is a concern that licensing contracts will abrogate an alleged right to “fair use” by making the defense harder to muster:  

One of the more troubling aspects of the Copyright Office’s letter is the length to which it goes to assert that right holders must be free in their licensing agreements with MVPDs to bargain away the public’s fair use rights… Of course, the right of consumers to time-shift video programming for personal use has been enshrined in law since Sony v. Universal in 1984. There’s no uncertainty about that particular fair use question—none at all.

The major problem with this reasoning (notwithstanding the somewhat misleading drafting of Section 107) is that “fair use” is not an affirmative right, it is an affirmative defense. Despite claims that “fair use” is a right, the Supreme Court has noted on at least two separate occasions (1, 2) that Section 107 was “structured… [as]… an affirmative defense requiring a case-by-case analysis.”

Moreover, important as the Sony case is, it does not not establish that “[t]here’s no uncertainty about [time-shifting as a] fair use question—none at all.” What it actually establishes is that, given the facts of that case, time-shifting was a fair use. Not for nothing the Sony Court notes at the outset of its opinion that

An explanation of our rejection of respondents’ unprecedented attempt to impose copyright liability upon the distributors of copying equipment requires a quite detailed recitation of the findings of the District Court.

But more generally, the Sony doctrine stands for the proposition that:

“The limited scope of the copyright holder’s statutory monopoly, like the limited copyright duration required by the Constitution, reflects a balance of competing claims upon the public interest: creative work is to be encouraged and rewarded, but private motivation must ultimately serve the cause of promoting broad public availability of literature, music, and the other arts. The immediate effect of our copyright law is to secure a fair return for an ‘author’s’ creative labor. But the ultimate aim is, by this incentive, to stimulate artistic creativity for the general public good. ‘The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the monopoly,’ this Court has said, ‘lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.’ Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U. S. 123, 286 U. S. 127. See Kendall v. Winsor, 21 How. 322, 62 U. S. 327-328; Grant v. Raymond, 6 Pet. 218, 31 U. S. 241-242. When technological change has rendered its literal terms ambiguous, the Copyright Act must be construed in light of this basic purpose.” Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U. S. 151, 422 U. S. 156 (1975) (footnotes omitted).

In other words, courts must balance competing interests to maximize “the general benefits derived by the public,” subject to technological change and other criteria that might shift that balance in any particular case.  

Thus, even as an affirmative defense, nothing is guaranteed. The court will have to walk through a balancing test, and only after that point, and if the accused party’s behavior has not tipped the scales against herself, will the court find the use a “fair use.”  

As I noted before,

Not surprisingly, other courts are inclined to follow the Supreme Court. Thus the Eleventh Circuit, the Southern District of New York, and the Central District of California (here and here), to name but a few, all explicitly refer to fair use as an affirmative defense. Oh, and the Ninth Circuit did too, at least until Lenz.

The Lenz case was an interesting one because, despite the above noted Supreme Court precedent treating “fair use” as a defense, it is one of the very few cases that has held “fair use” to be an affirmative right (in that case, the court decided that Section 1201 of the DMCA required consideration of “fair use” as a part of filling out a take-down notice). And in doing so, it too tried to rely on Sony to restructure the nature of “fair use.” But as I have previously written, “[i]t bears noting that the Court in Sony Corp. did not discuss whether or not fair use is an affirmative defense, whereas Acuff Rose (decided 10 years after Sony Corp.) and Harper & Row decisions do.”

Further, even the Eleventh Circuit, which the Ninth relied upon in Lenz, later clarified its position that the above-noted Supreme Court precedent definitely binds lower courts, and that “fair use” is in fact an affirmative defense.

Thus, to say that rightsholders’ licensing contracts somehow impinge a “right” of fair use completely puts the cart before the horse. Remember, as an affirmative defense, “fair use” is an excuse for otherwise infringing behavior, and rightsholders are well within their constitutional and statutory rights to avoid potential infringing uses.

Think about it this way. When you commit a crime you can raise a defense: for instance, an insanity defense. But just because you might be excused for committing a crime if a court finds you were not operating with full faculties, this does not entitle every insane person to go out and commit that crime. The insanity defense can be raised only after a crime is committed, and at that point it will be examined by a judge and jury to determine if applying the defense furthers the overall criminal law scheme.

“Fair use” works in exactly the same manner. And even though Sony described how time- and space-shifting were potentially permissible, it did so only by determining on those facts that the balancing test came out to allow it. So, maybe a particular time-shifting use would be “fair use.” But maybe not. More likely, in this case, even the allegedly well-established “fair use” of time-shifting in the context of today’s digital media, on-demand programing, Netflix and the like may not meet that burden.

And what this means is that a rightsholder does not have an ex ante obligation to consider whether a particular contractual clause might in some fashion or other give rise to a “fair use” defense.

The contrary point of view makes no sense. Because “fair use” is a defense, forcing parties to build “fair use” considerations into their contractual negotiations essentially requires them to build in an allowance for infringement — and one that a court might or might not ever find appropriate in light of the requisite balancing of interests. That just can’t be right.

Instead, I think this article is just a piece of the larger IP-skeptic movement. I suspect that when “fair use” was in its initial stages of development, it was intended as a fairly gentle softening on the limits of intellectual property — something like the “public necessity” doctrine in common law with respect to real property and trespass. However, that is just not how “fair use” advocates see it today. As Geoff Manne has noted, the idea of “permissionless innovation” has wrongly come to mean “no contracts required (or permitted)”:  

[Permissionless innovation] is used to justify unlimited expansion of fair use, and is extended by advocates to nearly all of copyright…, which otherwise requires those pernicious licenses (i.e., permission) from others.

But this position is nonsense — intangible property is still property. And at root, property is just a set of legal relations between persons that defines their rights and obligations with respect to some “thing.” It doesn’t matter if you can hold that thing in your hand or not. As property, IP can be subject to transfer and control through voluntarily created contracts.

Even if “fair use” were some sort of as-yet unknown fundamental right, it would still be subject to limitations upon it by other rights and obligations. To claim that “fair use” should somehow trump the right of a property holder to dispose of the property as she wishes is completely at odds with our legal system.

In Constitutional Law, Copyright, Federal Communications Commission, Intellectual Property, Regulation, Telecommunications, Truth on the Market , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Robust Patent and Copyright Systems Promote a Strong U.S. Economy – and Are Consistent with Originalist Understandings of the Constitution

Alden Abbott —  21 June 2016

In a Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum released today, I explore both the “constitutionalist” as well as utilitarian, economic-welfare-oriented justifications for robust U.S. patent and copyright systems.  The Memorandum explains:

Intellectual property (IP) is increasingly important to the American private economy, and a discussion of the appropriate public policy toward IP is timely, particularly given the recent growth in public skepticism toward IP rights. Robust federal protection for IP is not just important to America’s economic future, but also consistent with constitutional originalism and the early U.S. historical understanding of the nature and role of IP.

Critical scrutiny has focused on the federal patent and copyright systems, which are authorized by the Patent and Copyright Clause (IP Clause) of the U.S. Constitution. The following discussion of IP also focuses on patents and copyrights. The other two principal forms of intellectual property, trademarks and trade secrets, are the subject of federal legislation pursuant to the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution,as well as protections in state law. These forms have received less critical attention lately and are beyond the scope of this commentary.

Contrary to what some critics have argued, the robust protection of patents and copyrights as property is consistent with the original understanding of the Framers of the Constitution, who viewed IP through the lens of natural rights. During the early stages of the Republic, leading commentators and legislators, as well as President Abraham Lincoln, held IP rights in high regard. Supporters of robust IP rights can therefore claim the force of history and constitutional political philosophy, while critics fail in their claims that IP rights are special privileges that should be deemed second-class property rights (if they qualify as rights at all).

Admittedly, the fact that IP rights have solid constitutional backing does not address the question of how Congress should deal with them today. One might ask whether Congress, consistent with its authority under the IP Clause, should cut back on IP rights for pragmatic reasons, such as strengthening the American economy. Far from being inefficient, monopolistic drags on economic efficiency as some critics have suggested, however, the patent and copyright systems are vital to innovation, wealth creation, and economic growth.

Thus, calls to degrade IP rights are misplaced and, if heeded, would prove detrimental to the American economy. Congress and the executive branch should enhance rather than lessen the protection of American IP rights both in the United States and around the world.

In Constitutional Law, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Patent, Truth on the Market , ,
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Raisins, Takings, and the Regulatory State

Alden Abbott —  22 June 2015

Today, in Horne v. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fifth Amendment requires that the Government pay just compensation when it takes personal property, just as when it takes real property, and that the Government cannot make raisin growers relinquish their property without just compensation as a condition of selling their raisins in interstate commerce. This decision represents a major victory for economic liberty, but it is at best the first step in the reining in of anticompetitive cartel-like government regulation by government. (See my previous discussion of this matter at Truth on the Market here and a more detailed discussion of today’s decision here.) A capsule summary of the Court’s holding follows.

Most American raisins are grown in California. Under a United States Department of Agriculture Raisin Marketing Order, California raisin growers must give a percentage of their crop to a Raisin Administrative Committee (a government entity largely comprised of raisin producers appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture) to sell, allocate, or dispose of, and the government sets the compensation price that growers are paid for these “reserved” raisins. After selling the reserved raisins and deducting expenses, the Committee returns any net proceeds to the growers. The Hornes were assessed a fine of $480,000 plus a $200,000 civil penalty for refusing to set aside raisins for the government in 2002. The Hornes sued in court, arguing that the reserve requirement violated the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause. The Ninth Circuit rejected the Hornes’ claim that this was a per se taking, because personal property is entitled to less protection than private property, and concluded rather that this should be treated as a regulatory taking, such as a government condition on the grant of a land use permit. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that neither the text nor the history of the Takings Clause suggests that appropriation of personal property is different from appropriation of real property. The Court also held that the government may not avoid its categorical duty to pay just compensation by reserving to the property owner a contingent interest in the property. The Court further held that in this case, the government mandate to surrender property as a condition to engage in commerce effects a per se taking, noting that selling raisins in interstate commerce is “not a special governmental benefit that the Government may hold hostage, to be ransomed by the waiver of constitutional protection.” The Court majority determined that the case should not be remanded to the Ninth Circuit to calculate the amount of just compensation, because the government already did so when it fined the Hornes $480,000, the fair market value of the raisins.

The Horne decision is a victory for economic freedom and the right of individuals not to participate in government cartel schemes that harm the public interest. Unfortunately, however, it is a limited one. As the dissent by Justice Sotomayor indicates, “the Government . . . can permissibly achieve its market control goals by imposing a quota without offering raisin producers a way of reaping any return whatsoever on the raisins they cannot sell.” In short, today’s holding turns entirely on the conclusion that the raisin marketing order involves a “physical taking” of raisins. A more straightforward regulatory scheme under which the federal government directly limited production by raisin growers (much as the government did to a small wheat farmer in Wickard v. Filburn) likely would pass constitutional muster under modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

Thus, if it is truly interested in benefiting the American public and ferreting out special interest favoritism in agriculture, Congress should give serious consideration to prohibiting far more than production limitations in agricultural marketing orders. More generally, it should consider legislation to bar any regulatory restrictions that have the effect of limiting the freedom of individual farmers to grow and sell as much of their crop as they please. Such a rule would promote general free market competition, to the benefit of American consumers and the American economy.

In Constitutional Law, Regulation , ,
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Challenging Anticompetitive Government Action, in Light of Constitutional Constraints on U.S. Antitrust Law

Alden Abbott —  15 December 2014

On December 11 I published a Heritage Foundation Legal Memorandum on this topic. I concluded that the federal courts have done a fairly good job in harmonizing antitrust with constitutionally-based federalism and First Amendment interests (petitioning, free speech, and religious freedom). Nevertheless, it must be admitted that these “constitutional constraints” somewhat limit the ability of antitrust to promote a procompetitive, pro-efficiency, pro-innovation, pro-consumer welfare agenda. Anticompetitive government action – the most pernicious and long-lasting affront to competition, because it is backed by the coercive power of the state – presents a particularly serious and widespread problem. How can antitrust and other legal principles be applied to further promote economic freedom and combat anticompetitive government action, in a manner consistent with the Constitution?

First, it may be possible to further tweak antitrust to apply a bit more broadly to governmental conduct, without upsetting the constitutional balance.

For instance, in 2013, in Phoebe Putney, the United States Supreme Court commendably held that general grants of corporate powers (such as the power to enter into contracts) to sub-state governmental entities are not in themselves “clear articulations” of a state policy to displace competition. Thus, in that case, a special purpose hospital authority granted general corporate powers by the State of Georgia could not evade federal antitrust scrutiny when it orchestrated a potentially anticompetitive hospital merger. In short, by requiring states to be specific when they authorize regulators to displace competition, Phoebe Putney makes it a bit more difficult to achieve anticompetitive results through routine state governmental processes.

But what about when a subsidiary state entity has been empowered to displace competition? Imposing a greater requirement on states to actively supervise decisions by self-interested state regulatory boards could enhance competition without severely undermining state prerogatives. Specifically, where members of a profession dominate a state-created board that oversees the profession, the risk of self-dealing and consumer harm is particularly high, and therefore the board’s actions should be subject to exacting scrutiny. In its imminent ruling on the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) challenge to anticompetitive rules by the dentist-dominated North Carolina Dental Board of Dental Examiners (rules which forestall competition by storefront teeth whitening services), the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to require that states actively supervise the decisions of self-interested regulators as a prerequisite to federal antitrust immunity. At the very least, such a requirement would make states be more cautious before giving a blank check to potentially anticompetitive industry self-regulation. It could also raise the costs of obtaining special government favor, and shed needed light on rent-seekers’ efforts to achieve regulatory capture.

Unfortunately, though, a great deal of anticompetitive governmental activity, both state and federal, is and will remain beyond the bounds of federal antitrust prosecution. What can be done to curb such excesses, given the practical political difficulties in achieving far-reaching pro-competitive legislative and regulatory reforms? My December 11 Heritage Memo highlights a few possibilities rooted in constitutional economic liberties (see also the recent Heritage Foundation special report on economic liberty and the Constitution). One involves putting greater teeth into constitutional equal protection and due process analysis – say, by holding that pure protectionism standing alone does not pass muster as a “rational basis” justification for a facially anticompetitive law. Another approach is to deploy takings law (highlighted in a current challenge to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s raisin cartel) and the negative commerce clause in appropriate circumstances. The utility of these approaches, however, is substantially limited by case law.

Finally, competition advocacy – featuring public statements by competition agencies that describe the anticompetitive effects and welfare harm stemming from specific government regulations or proposed laws – remains a potentially fruitful means for highlighting the costs of anticompetitive government action and building a case for reform. As I have previously explained, the FTC has an established track record of competition advocacy filings, and the International Competition Network is encouraging the utilization of competition advocacy around the world. By shedding light on the specific baleful effects of government actions that undermine normal competitive processes, competition advocacy may over time help build a political case for reform that transcends the inherent limitations of antitrust and constitutional litigation.

In Antitrust & Competition, Constitutional Law, Federal Trade Commission, Federalism, First Amendment, Regulation, Regulatory Reform, Supreme Court , , , ,
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Occupational Licensing, Competition, and the Constitution: Prospects for Reform?

Alden Abbott —  18 July 2014

U.S. antitrust law focuses primarily on private anticompetitive restraints, leaving the most serious impediments to a vibrant competitive process – government-initiated restraints – relatively free to flourish.  Thus the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should be commended for its July 16 congressional testimony that spotlights a fast-growing and particularly pernicious species of (largely state) government restriction on competition – occupational licensing requirements.  Today such disciplines (to name just a few) as cat groomers, flower arrangers, music therapists, tree trimmers, frozen dessert retailers, eyebrow threaders, massage therapists (human and equine), and “shampoo specialists,” in addition to the traditional categories of doctors, lawyers, and accountants, are subject to professional licensure.  Indeed, since the 1950s, the coverage of such rules has risen dramatically, as the percentage of Americans requiring government authorization to do their jobs has risen from less than five percent to roughly 30 percent.

Even though some degree of licensing responds to legitimate health and safety concerns (i.e., no fly-by-night heart surgeons), much occupational regulation creates unnecessary barriers to entry into a host of jobs.  Excessive licensing confers unwarranted benefits on fortunate incumbents, while effectively barring large numbers of capable individuals from the workforce.  (For example, many individuals skilled in natural hair braiding simply cannot afford the 2,100 hours required to obtain a license in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.)  It also imposes additional economic harms, as the FTC’s testimony explains:  “[Occupational licensure] regulations may lead to higher prices, lower quality services and products, and less convenience for consumers.  In the long term, they can cause lasting damage to competition and the competitive process by rendering markets less responsive to consumer demand and by dampening incentives for innovation in products, services, and business models.”  Licensing requirements are often enacted in tandem with other occupational regulations that unjustifiably limit the scope of beneficial services particular professionals can supply – for instance, a ban on tooth cleaning by dental hygienists not acting under a dentist’s supervision that boosts dentists’ income but denies treatment to poor children who have no access to dentists.

What legal and policy tools are available to chip away at these pernicious and costly laws and regulations, which largely are the fruit of successful special interest lobbying?  The FTC’s competition advocacy program, which responds to requests from legislators and regulators to assess the economic merits of proposed laws and regulations, has focused on unwarranted regulatory restrictions in such licensed professions as real estate brokers, electricians, accountants, lawyers, dentists, dental hygienists, nurses, eye doctors, opticians, and veterinarians.  Retrospective reviews of FTC advocacy efforts suggest it may have helped achieve some notable reforms (for example, 74% of requestors, regulators, and bill sponsors surveyed responded that FTC advocacy initiatives influenced outcomes).  Nevertheless, advocacy’s reach and effectiveness inherently are limited by FTC resource constraints, by the need to obtain “invitations” to submit comments, and by the incentive and ability of licensing scheme beneficiaries to oppose regulatory and legislative reforms.

Former FTC Chairman Kovacic and James Cooper (currently at George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center) have suggested that federal and state antitrust experts could be authorized to have ex ante input into regulatory policy making.  As the authors recognize, however, several factors sharply limit the effectiveness of such an initiative.  In particular, “the political feasibility of this approach at the legislative level is slight”, federal mandates requiring ex ante reviews would raise serious federalism concerns, and resource constraints would loom large.

Antitrust law challenges to anticompetitive licensing schemes likewise offer little solace.  They are limited by the antitrust “state action” doctrine, which shields conduct undertaken pursuant to “clearly articulated” state legislative language that displaces competition – a category that generally will cover anticompetitive licensing requirements.  Even a Supreme Court decision next term (in North Carolina Dental v. FTC) that state regulatory boards dominated by self-interested market participants must be actively supervised to enjoy state action immunity would have relatively little bite.  It would not limit states from issuing simple statutory commands that create unwarranted occupational barriers, nor would it prevent states from implementing “adequate” supervisory schemes that are designed to approve anticompetitive state board rules.

What then is to be done?

Constitutional challenges to unjustifiable licensing strictures may offer the best long-term solution to curbing this regulatory epidemic.  As Clark Neily points out in Terms of Engagement, there is a venerable constitutional tradition of protecting the liberty interest to earn a living, reflected in well-reasoned late 19th and early 20th century “Lochner-era” Supreme Court opinions.  Even if Lochner is not rehabilitated, however, there are a few recent jurisprudential “straws in the wind” that support efforts to rein in “irrational” occupational licensure barriers.  Perhaps acting under divine inspiration, the Fifth Circuit in St. Joseph Abbey (2013) ruled that Louisiana statutes that required all casket manufacturers to be licensed funeral directors – laws that prevented monks from earning a living by making simple wooden caskets – served no other purpose than to protect the funeral industry, and, as such, violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.  In particular, the Fifth Circuit held that protectionism, standing alone, is not a legitimate state interest sufficient to establish a “rational basis” for a state statute, and that absent other legitimate state interests, the law must fall.  Since the Sixth and Ninth Circuits also have held that intrastate protectionism standing alone is not a legitimate purpose for rational basis review, but the Tenth Circuit has held to the contrary, the time may soon be ripe for the Supreme Court to review this issue and, hopefully, delegitimize pure economic protectionism.  Such a development would place added pressure on defenders of protectionist occupational licensing schemes.  Other possible avenues for constitutional challenges to protectionist licensing regimes (perhaps, for example, under the Dormant Commerce Clause) also merit being explored, of course.  The Institute of Justice already is performing yeoman’s work in litigating numerous cases involving unjustified licensing and other encroachments on economic liberty; perhaps their example can prove an inspiration for pro bono efforts by others.

Eliminating anticompetitive occupational licensing rules – and, more generally, vindicating economic liberties that too long have been neglected – is obviously a long-term project, and far-reaching reform will not happen in the near term.  Nevertheless, while we the currently living may in the long run be dead (pace Keynes), our posterity will be alive, and we owe it to them to pursue the vindication of economic liberties under the Constitution.

In Antitrust & Competition, Barriers to Entry, Constitutional Law, Exemptions, Federal Trade Commission, Federalism, Google, Law & Economics, Platforms, Regulation , , , ,
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WSJ Mistake on Holding of Health Care Ruling

Thom Lambert —  2 July 2012

Here’s a Letter to the Editor I sent to the Wall Street Journal today:

Dear Editor:

Today’s front page article, “GOP’s New Health-Law Front,” states that the Supreme Court’s Affordable Care Act ruling  “circumvented the issue of whether the law was proper under Congress’s constitutional right to regulate commerce among the states.”  That is incorrect.  Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion emphasized that he construed the penalty for failure to carry insurance as a tax only because doing so was necessary to sustain the Act’s constitutionality.  Had the Commerce Clause authorized the individual mandate, the Chief Justice would not have endorsed what he conceded was not “the most straightforward reading of the mandate.”  The Chief Justice’s conclusion that the individual mandate exceeded Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause–a conclusion also reached by dissenting Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito–was therefore necessary to the majority coalition’s conclusion that the penalty for failure to carry insurance was authorized by Congress’s power of taxation.  That makes it part of the Court’s holding and thus binding constitutional precedent.  While your editorial, “A Vast New Taxing Power,” correctly chides the Chief Justice for improperly expanding Congress’s taxation powers, you must give him credit for preventing a Commerce Clause ruling that would have eviscerated the notion of enumerated powers by granting Congress a general police power.

Sincerely,

Thom Lambert
Professor of Law
University of Missouri Law School
Columbia, Missouri

In Constitutional Law, Health Care , ,
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Richard Thaler on “Slippery Slopes”

Paul H. Rubin —  13 May 2012

In today’s New York Times, Richard Thaler argues that the Constitutional “slippery slope” argument in the Obamacare case (“Today health care, tomorrow broccoli”) is misguided.  This is a strange argument in this particular case.  We must remember that all of today’s commerce clause jurisprudence (which everyone agrees has greatly expanded the power of the Federal government to regulate economic activity) rests on Wickard v. Filburn, a 1942 case involving a small wheat and chicken farmer in Ohio.  If ever there was a slippery slope, this is it, and it seems rational to fear another in the same Constitutional line.

In Constitutional Law, Economic Theory, Health Care, Law & Economics , , ,
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My Professor, My Judge, and the Doctrine of Judicial Review

Thom Lambert —  3 April 2012

Imagine if you picked up your morning paper to read that one of your astronomy professors had publicly questioned whether the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun.  Or suppose that one of your economics professors was quoted as saying that consumers would purchase more gasoline if the price would simply rise.  Or maybe your high school math teacher was publicly insisting that 2 + 2 = 5.  You’d be a little embarrassed, right?  You’d worry that your colleagues and friends might begin to question your astronomical, economic, or mathematical literacy.

Now you know how I felt this morning when I read in the Wall Street Journal that my own constitutional law professor had stated that it would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the Supreme Court to “overturn[] a law [i.e., the Affordable Care Act] that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”  Putting aside the “strong majority” nonsense (the deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act got through the Senate with the minimum number of votes needed to survive a filibuster and passed 219-212 in the House), saying that it would be “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to strike down a law that violates the Constitution is like saying that Kansas City is the capital of Kansas.  Thus, a Wall Street Journal editorial queried this about the President who “famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago”:  “[D]id he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?”

I actually know the answer to that question.  It’s no (well, technically yes…he didn’t).  President Obama taught “Con Law III” at Chicago.  Judicial review, federalism, the separation of powers — the old “structural Constitution” stuff — is covered in “Con Law I” (or at least it was when I was a student).  Con Law III covers the Fourteenth Amendment.  (Oddly enough, Prof. Obama didn’t seem too concerned about “an unelected group of people” overturning a “duly constituted and passed law” when we were discussing all those famous Fourteenth Amendment cases — Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, Romer v. Evans, etc.)  Of course, even a Con Law professor focusing on the Bill of Rights should know that the principle of judicial review has been alive and well since 1803, so I still feel like my educational credentials have been tarnished a bit by the President’s “unprecedented, extraordinary” remarks.

Fortunately, another bit of my educational background somewhat mitigates the reputational damage inflicted by the President’s unfortunate comments.  This morning, the judge for whom I clerked, Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, called the President’s bluff.

Here’s a bit of transcript from this morning’s oral argument in Physicians Hospital of America v. Sebelius, a case involving a challenge to the Affordable Care Act:

Judge Jerry E. Smith: Does the Department of Justice recognize that federal courts have the authority in appropriate circumstances to strike federal statutes because of one or more constitutional infirmities?

Dana Lydia Kaersvang (DOJ Attorney): Yes, your honor. Of course, there would need to be a severability analysis, but yes.

Smith: I’m referring to statements by the President in the past few days to the effect…that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed “unelected” judges to strike acts of Congress that have enjoyed — he was referring, of course, to Obamacare — what he termed broad consensus in majorities in both houses of Congress.

That has troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority or to the appropriateness of the concept of judicial review. And that’s not a small matter. So I want to be sure that you’re telling us that the attorney general and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts through unelected judges to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases.

Kaersvang: Marbury v. Madison is the law, your honor, but it would not make sense in this circumstance to strike down this statute, because there’s no –

Smith: I would like to have from you by noon on Thursday…a letter stating what is the position of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, in regard to the recent statements by the President, stating specifically and in detail in reference to those statements what the authority is of the federal courts in this regard in terms of judicial review. That letter needs to be at least three pages single spaced, no less, and it needs to be specific. It needs to make specific reference to the President’s statements and again to the position of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice.

I must say, I’m pretty dang proud of Judge Smith right now.  And I’m really looking forward to reading that three-page, single-spaced letter.

In Constitutional Law, Federalism, Health Care, Justice Department , , , , ,
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Holtz-Eakin & Smith on The Economics of ObamaCare

Josh Wright —  19 March 2012

Douglas Holtz-Eakin and my former George Mason colleague and Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith are in the WSJ today discussing the economic wisdom and constitutionality of ObamaCare.  From the WSJ:

The Obama administration defends the mandate on the ground that a person’s decision to not buy health insurance affects commerce by materially increasing the costs of others’ health insurance. The government adds that health care is unique and therefore can be regulated constitutionally in ways other markets cannot.

In reality, the mandate has almost nothing to do with cost-shifting. The targeted population—the young, healthy and not poor who choose to forgo coverage—has a minimal role in the $43 billion of uncompensated health-care costs. In 2008, for example (the latest figures available), the Department of Health and Human Service’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey showed that the uncompensated care of the mandate’s targeted population was no more than $12.8 billion—a tiny one-half of 1% of the nation’s $2.4 trillion in overall health-care costs. The insurance mandate cannot reasonably be justified on the ground that it remedies costs imposed on the system by the voluntarily uninsured.

The government’s other defense is that the health-care market does not exhibit textbook competition. No market does. The economic features relied upon by the government—externalities, imperfect information, geographically distinct markets, etc.—are characteristic of many markets.  The presence of externalities and other market imperfections does not justify a departure from the normal rules of the constitutional road. Health care is typically consumed locally, and health-insurance markets themselves primarily operate within the states. The administration’s attempt to fashion a singular, universal solution is not necessary to deal with the variegated issues arising in these markets. States have taken the lead in past reform efforts. They should be an integral part of improving the functioning of health-care and health-insurance markets.

Holtz-Eakin and Smith conclude:

Without the individual mandate, ObamaCare imposes total net costs of $360 billion on health-insurance companies from 2012 through 2021. With the mandate, the law would provide a net $6 billion benefit—i.e., revenues in excess of costs—over that same time period. In other words, the benefits of the individual mandate to health-insurance companies, along with their additional revenues provided by ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, are projected to balance, nearly perfectly, the costs that the law’s various regulatory mandates impose on insurers.

The individual mandate and Medicaid expansions appear to many to be unconstitutional. They are certainly bad economic policy. When they go, the entire law must fall. The administration built an intricate, balanced policy on a flawed economic foundation. It is up to the Supreme Court to pull it down.

Go read the whole thing.

In Constitutional Law, Health Care, Health Insurance , ,
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Green Bag’s “The Post” Recognizes TOTM in “Best Legal Blogging”

Josh Wright —  3 November 2011

The Green Bag recently introduced its Journal of Law, which has in turn introduced “The Post.”   The Post features what the Green Bag describes as the “best in legal blogging.”  This is a pretty neat idea, like most everything the Green Bag does.  How does The Post select the best in legal blogging?  Judges with expertise in law, blogging, or both.

These experts represent a mix of academics and practitioners, have some experience blogging themselves (although they will not be encouraged to nominate their own writing), and – most importantly – are voracious, appreciative, and intelligent consumers of legal blogs.  They are donating their good judgment and eagle eyes in helping to curate our selections. Throughout the year, they will be nominating posts to be voted on by the panel; as editor-in-chief of The Post, I will determine how many votes are required for a post to be featured here, and I will aim to stay within a yearly range of 5-20 featured posts with a
minimum of arbitrariness or capriciousness.

I’m extremely pleased that the inaugural issue of The Post has recognized a series of my recent blog posts focusing upon Google and antitrust.  Its always nice to know somebody is reading; and it is also really flattering to be included in a list of some of the legal bloggers I read on a regular basis.  Here’s the set of bloggers and blogging recognized in the first issue of The Post:

So Much For the Commerce Clause Challenge to Individual Mandate Being “Frivolous,” The Volokh Conspiracy, July 18, 2010, by Randy Barnett

“Let ’em Play,” Volokh Conspiracy, July 18-22, 2011, by Mitch Berman

Healthcare and Federalism: Should courts strictly scrutinize federal regulation of medical services?, PrawfsBlawg, Aug. 14, 2011, by Rick Hills

Why John Edwards Probably Did Not Commit A Crime, Regardless of His Motives or Those of The Donors, Election Law Blog, June 4, 2011, by Richard Pildes

Legal Theory Lexicon: Legal Theory, Jurisprudence, and the Philosophy of Law, Legal Theory Blog, Apr. 24, 2011, by Lawrence B. Solum

Antitrust Remedies, Truth on the Market, May 10, July 11 & 13, 2011, by Josh Wright

The “Antitrust Remedies” series of posts include the following:

Barnett v. Barnett on Antitrust

Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part I

Searching for Antitrust Remedies, Part II

If you didn’t read them the first time around — this seems like as good a time as any!  And check out the other legal blogging in The Post.

 

In Antitrust & Competition, Constitutional Law, Federalism, Google, Platforms
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Shouldn’t the Wall Street Occupiers Oppose Obamacare?

Thom Lambert —  12 October 2011

It’s hard to discern much that’s coherent — much less cogent — from the cacophony that is Occupy Wall Street, but one valid complaint continually sounds through the noise:  When business interests get in bed with the government, injustice tends to result.

The Wall Street Occupiers are of course focused primarily on bailed-out financial firms (though not on union favorites GM and Chrysler, which, unlike most of the bailed-out financial firms, will end up costing taxpayers a huge pile of money).  But surely the Occupiers will also take a firm stand against one of the crassest examples of crony capitalism in the last three decades.

I’m speaking of the deal the Obama Administration struck with the insurance industry, pursuant to which industry leaders initially agreed not to oppose Obamacare in exchange for a provision forcing all Americans to purchase the industry’s product or pay a fine.  Not only does this deal privilege powerful business interests at the expense of ordinary Americans, it also promises to exacerbate income inequality by allowing medical professionals, who face very little price competition when buyers purchase their services using third-party insurance, to sustain their high salaries. 

Surely the Wall Street Occupiers recognize that if Congress can use its power to regulate commerce to coerce citizens, as a condition of merely existing, to purchase a private company’s product, then future instances of crony capitalism are inevitable.

In Constitutional Law, Regulation ,
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