Showing archive for: “Privacy & Data Security”
Your State Government Has a Friend Request Pending
A bevy of states are racing to mandate “digital choice” in social media. The new bills promise easy data portability and forced interoperability among platforms—letting users carry their accounts, contacts, and content across services through open protocols. Utah enacted the first such law in 2025, and legislatures in Virginia, South Dakota, New York, California, and ... Your State Government Has a Friend Request Pending
The AI Filing Cabinet That Isn’t There
Policymakers and commentators often treat large language models (LLMs) as if they were searchable repositories of personal data. The intuition is understandable: these systems train on massive corpora that may include personal information, and they occasionally generate outputs referencing real people. But the analogy is still wrong. And policy built on it risks distorting both ... The AI Filing Cabinet That Isn’t There
The Platform in Your Living Room
Over the last few decades, antitrust scholars and practitioners have scrutinized the role of platforms—particularly intermediaries—in the internet economy. Many intermediary platforms also compete in the markets they facilitate. That dual role raises familiar concerns about self-preferencing and the risk that a firm may advantage its own products or services. Regulators have focused primarily on ... The Platform in Your Living Room
Why Europe Can’t Kill the Cookie Banner
“Europe is so back. No more cookie banners.” Not quite. Cookie banners are here to stay. They endure as an annoying but telling symbol of a deeper problem: Europe’s political class still lacks the appetite for the hard choices reform requires. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was right in this year’s State of ... Why Europe Can’t Kill the Cookie Banner
Japan’s Experiment in Regulating Mobile Competition the European Way
As ex ante regulation sweeps across digital markets, Japan has decided not to stand athwart the global tide. With the Mobile Software Competition Act (MSCA) taking effect in December 2025, Tokyo aligned itself with the European Union’s effort to redesign platform competition by rule rather than by case. Among competition scholars, the prevailing mood is ... Japan’s Experiment in Regulating Mobile Competition the European Way
When Antitrust Prices a Platform Out of the Market: Nigeria’s Meta Fine
The global tech sector faces an unprecedented regulatory onslaught. In the United States, courts have labeled Google an illegal monopolist in search and open web advertising. In Europe, Apple, Meta, and Google confront fines and investigations for alleged antitrust violations. Elsewhere, regulators in Brazil, South Africa, and Australia are rolling out digital competition regimes—often with ... When Antitrust Prices a Platform Out of the Market: Nigeria’s Meta Fine
New Financial Regulatory Reforms Could Spur the Economy
Strong and vibrant financial markets are key to a thriving American economy. Rising regulatory costs, however, pose a burgeoning threat to financial-market efficiency. Recent executive-agency initiatives to harmonize federal government oversight of U.S. financial markets and to reform existing regulatory programs are notable. A new push to eliminate anticompetitive federal financial rules could yield further ... New Financial Regulatory Reforms Could Spur the Economy
Antitrust at the Agencies: Happy New Year 5786 Edition
It’s the beginning of a new year for some of us, so let me wish all of you a good year, and a sweet year, even if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Private Anticompetitive Censorship Continued? Turning back to the agency beat: in a Sept. 7 guest essay in The New York Times, ... Antitrust at the Agencies: Happy New Year 5786 Edition
Brazil’s Digital Markets Bill: A DMA Through the Back Door?
The Brazilian government’s executive branch hosted a political ceremony last week in which it unveiled its “Digital Brazil Agenda,” which proposes six government projects to build a “safer, more competitive, and more innovative digital environment.” The most high-profile of these was the Digital Child and Teenager Act, which would set rules for how social-media platforms ... Brazil’s Digital Markets Bill: A DMA Through the Back Door?
Comparing the EU DMA to the Search-Query Data-Sharing Remedy in US v Google
The “user-side” search-query data remedy carved out by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in the just handed-down U.S. v Google decision appears to be animated by a similar intuition (search quality depends on large volumes of click-and-query signals) as the EU Digital Markets Act’s Article 6(11), but they also diverge in important ways. Where ... Comparing the EU DMA to the Search-Query Data-Sharing Remedy in US v Google
Why the United States May Confront Nontariff Attacks Against Tech Firms
I recently explained in Forbes that U.S. trade negotiators could leverage the planned withdrawal of anticompetitive federal regulations to obtain a cutback in foreign anticompetitive market distortions (ACMDs) that harm American firms and consumers. A July 2 nonpartisan letter to senior administration officials from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), joined by senior policy scholars, ... Why the United States May Confront Nontariff Attacks Against Tech Firms
Let Privacy Features Compete: A Competition Approach to Privacy Regulation
The digital economy has made consumer data a central consideration in all kinds of consumer transactions. The digital economy “runs on data,” so to speak, although claims that data is “the new oil” fall short of the mark. Various digital services employ data to improve ad targeting, search, and artificial intelligence. In some kinds of ... Let Privacy Features Compete: A Competition Approach to Privacy Regulation
