Marketing Law Commons^™

Data Advantage And Merger Review: Can Entrenchment Theory Reform Antitrust Enforcement?, Shin-Ru Cheng

Seattle University Law Review

A merger involving giant digital companies is likely to dampen competition, as it allows those companies to combine and control data access, enabling them to entrench their dominant positions in relevant markets and extend those positions into related markets. While competition law in many jurisdictions aims to prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly, arguably the review of digital mergers is failing because antitrust agencies lack an effective approach to identify data-generated anticompetitive harms. This Article demonstrates that entrenchment theory, recently reintroduced in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, would help reform the process of antitrust enforcement. …

Defining Deference: Impacts Of Abandoning Chevron On Emerging Technology Governance And Administrative Law, R. Aubrey Davis Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), often lead to unforeseen legal outcomes. Notable abuses in areas such as facial recognition, employment bias, and housing discrimination are well known. However, legislative responses to these issues either have been largely reactive or there has been no legislative response at all. In lieu of legislation, agencies have sought to fill the gap. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed a rule mandating voter notification for all AI-generated political phone calls citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as authority. However, the TCPA was originally passed to curtail telemarketing, not …

The Case For Preemptive Oligopoly Regulation, Jeffrey D. Manns

Indiana Law Journal

One of the few things former President Donald Trump and leading Democrats appear to agree on is the need to subject Big Technology (“Big Tech”) firms to antitrust scrutiny. But unsurprisingly they disagree about how to address the problem. Senator Elizabeth Warren and many other leading Democrats have called for breaking up large technology firms, such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, in a revival of the trust-busting progressive era of the early twentieth century. In contrast, the Trump administration triggered more traditional antitrust monopoly review of potential anticompetitive activities of a number of leading technology firms, which is more likely …

Intellectual Property For Breakfast: Market Power And Informative Symbols In The Marketplace, P. Sean Morris

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article continues to examine an important question: are trademarks a source of market power, or, put differently, when are trademarks an antitrust problem? This fundamental question is a cause of division among antitrust and intellectual property law scholars. However, by raising the question and presenting some scenarios that can provide answers, my hope is that contemporary antitrust and intellectual property scholars can explore some of its implications. As part of my own quest to address this question, I explore the proposition that creative deception and the wealth-generating capacity of trademarks are unorthodox elements that actually contribute to allegations of …

After Search Neutrality: Drawing A Line Between Promotion And Demotion, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The Federal Trade Commission's (“FTC” or “the commission”) January 3, 2013 decision to close its longstanding investigation of Google1 brings to a close a flurry of discussion over the possibility that Google could become subject to a “search neutrality” principle in the United States. Although the Commission found against Google on several grounds, it rejected petitions from Google's critics to create a search neutrality principle as a matter of antitrust law. This essay briefly analyzes what remains of U.S. antitrust scrutiny of Internet search bias after the Google settlement. In particular, it suggests that a sensible line can be drawn …

Search Neutrality As An Antitrust Principle, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Given the Internet's designation as "the great equalizer,"' it is unsurprising that nondiscrimination has emerged as a central aspiration of web governance.2 But, of course, bias, discrimination, and neutrality are among the slipperiest of regulatory principles. One person's bias is another person's prioritization. Fresh on the heels of its initial success in advocating a net neutrality principle,' Google is in the uncomfortable position of trying to stave off a corollary principle of search neutrality.' Search neutrality has not yet coalesced into a generally understood principle, but at its heart is some idea that Internet search engines ought not to prefer …

Changes In The Ticket Distribution Industry: Is This The Beginning Of The End For Ticketmaster?, Joycelyn Stevenson

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note aims to explore the legal underpinnings of consumer frustration with Ticketmaster and the rest of the ticket distribution industry as it moves into the electronic age. First, this Note introduces Ticketmaster and examines its use of exclusive dealing agreements with local venues. It then discusses the relevant federal antitrust statutes affecting the industry and the market in which distributors operate. It also analyzes the role exclusive dealing agreements play in stifling competition. Next, this Note discusses the challenges--both legal and economic--to the industry's most visible member. It then discusses Ticketmaster as a possible product of competition in light …

Franchising And The Collective Rights Of Franchisees, Robert W. Emerson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Assume that you are the franchisee of a nationwide restaurant chain. Your franchisor has acted contrary to what you believe to be in your best interest. For the franchisor, bigger is better: more outlets and discount programs mean higher sales volume and consequently additional franchise fees and royalties, with royalties typically being based on gross sales-not franchisee net profits. You are concerned that the franchisor is oriented more toward expansion than the well-being of existing franchisees. Franchisor assistance is less than you expected, but royalties and other charges seem steep.Facing a strong franchisor that appears not to worry about an …

Book Reviews, Joseph J. Norton, L. Harold Levinson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

When considered as an installment in the unfolding of Friedmann's views, based on his earlier writings, the conclusion to the book under review is to be cherished. When considered, on the other hand, solely in context of the contributed chapters of the same volume, the conclusion does not emerge as Friedmann at his most forceful or persuasive. To find the best of Friedmann, we need only sample his prolific contributions to the law reviews, whether on the United States involvement in the Vietnam conflict, the judgment of the International Court in the South West Africa cases, the risks to humanity …

Refusal To Sell, Vernon A. Mund

Vanderbilt Law Review

Today, the business practice of refusal to sell is one of the principal antitrust complaints. However, paradoxically, it is a complaint which receives practically the least amount of attention and relief. Typically, the antitrust agencies treat reports on refusal to sell with the generalized reply that "the seller has the right to choose his own customers." The very number of complaints, however, as well as an economic analysis of the practice itself, points to the need for a reevaluation of this business practice and for a reappraisal of the currently applicable judicial decisions.

As we shall see in the present …

The Right Of A Businessman To Lower The Price Of His Goods, Stanley D. Rose

Vanderbilt Law Review

The present actions being taken to mark the transition from cold to hot war are settling a number of problems and creating a host of others. The direction of our national effort within the economy will shift to production; our normal interest would be in distribution. This shift will not mean that the antitrust laws will be entirely suspended. There remain certain vital functions of protecting whole classes of citizens during the coming years of stress and for that day when once again we return to our new two-cars-for-every-family ideal.

'But it cannot be denied that a discussion of lowering …