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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tech Giant Exclusion, John B. Kirkwood
Tech Giant Exclusion, John B. Kirkwood
Faculty Articles
There is no topic in regulatory policy that is more pressing and more controversial than what to do about the tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Critics claim that that these powerful platforms crush competitors, distort the political process, and elude antitrust law because it cares only about consumer prices. The only solution, they argue, is to break them up.
This diagnosis is mistaken. The tech giants have indeed engaged in anticompetitive conduct. They have excluded rivals selling products on their platforms by demoting them in search results, copying their products, or refusing to deal with them. While …
Antitrust And Two-Sided Platforms: The Failure Of American Express, John B. Kirkwood
Antitrust And Two-Sided Platforms: The Failure Of American Express, John B. Kirkwood
Faculty Articles
Two-sided platforms serve two sets of customers and enable them to interact with each other. The five most valuable corporations in America – Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft – all operate two-sided platforms. But despite their growing power, the Supreme Court's American Express decision has made it harder to stop them from stifling competition. This Article systematically exposes the flaws in the Court's reasoning and identifies the principles that should govern future cases. The Court’s most fundamental error was to require plaintiffs in rule of reason cases to make an initial showing of consumer harm that weighs the effects …