If we regulate to protect privacy, do we risk competition? If we regulate to strengthen competition, do we risk innovation? If we regulate to exclude harmful content, do we risk free speech? Over-simplified perhaps, but these are in essence some of the hard questions in tech policy right now, and grappling with such questions from within a tech company must be one of the most challenging jobs there is. In this episode we are joined by Matt Perault, former head of global policy development at Fac...
Dec 04, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Across developing countries, connectivity through internet access and use, particularly on mobile devices, has vastly improved over the last decade. In large part this is due to the efforts of Big Tech and their strategies of reaching “the next billion users”. As welcome as such efforts may be, there are risks also for competition as a key driver of economic development and growth. So how have governments and competition authorities in developing countries been responding? In this episode we are...
Nov 13, 2019•34 min•Season 1Ep. 39
There wouldn’t be too many more prized, and pressured, jobs than as Chief Economist at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, and particularly in recent years when DG Comp has been at the vanguard of developments in antitrust enforcement against Big Tech. Professor Tommaso Valletti has just completed his three year term as DG Comp’s Chief Economist and has much to share about his experience. In this episode we canvas what it’s like being in the “Brussels bubble”, working ...
Oct 23, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Much of the antitrust discourse nowadays is about personal data and the implications of concentrated digital markets for our privacy. But, in focussing on data, have we been missing the wood for the trees? Are we in fact trading our scarce and precious attention for many of the supposedly free services we enjoy online? In this episode our guest, Associate Professor John Newman from the University of Miami, discusses his research on attention markets, why he thinks there are substantial individua...
Oct 02, 2019•28 min•Season 1Ep. 37
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has completed its ground-breaking inquiry into digital platforms. What distinguishes this inquiry from many others is its broad holistic approach to competition, consumer, unfair trading, privacy and public interest issues. It has a focus on the media and advertising sectors but, if accepted, many of its 23 recommendations will have economy-wide effects. In this episode you will hear from Morag Bond and Kate Reader, the joint general managers of...
Sep 18, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 36
The pervasiveness of platforms in our societies is hard to ignore. It has wide ranging effects on and implications for our economic, social and cultural practices and lives. Some focus on the dominance of digital platforms as a failing of antitrust and call for an entire overhaul of the intellectual enterprise. Others go further. One of those is the guest on this episode, Professor Frank Pasquale of the University of Maryland, author of the widely acclaimed book, The Black Box Society: The Secre...
Sep 04, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 35
The George Stigler Centre at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has been undertaking a wide ranging study of digital platforms . One aspect of the study has a focus on market structures in digital platform markets and the antitrust implications. Other aspects explore privacy and data protection, media and the political system. Each of these aspects of the study have been examined by a subcommittee which has produced a report with its key findings and recommendations, to facilitat...
Aug 21, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Between them GAFA have made more than 400 acquisitions over just the last 10 years. With the benefit of hindsight, many of these acquisitions have been portrayed as strategic or killer acquisitions, designed to snuff out potential or emergent competitive threats. Recognising this, there is a growing view that competition authorities must be more prepared to protect competitive market structures and to do so may require changes in the approach taken to error cost and counterfactual assessments in...
Jul 31, 2019•36 min•Season 1Ep. 33
If you spend any time reading the US press you will have realised that there’s recently been a potentially dramatic series of developments when it comes to Big Tech antitrust. Investigations, congressional hearings and even break ups are all on the menu. In this episode our guest is Matt Stoller , Fellow at the Open Markets Institute , a US think-tank on a mission to address threats posed to democracy from monopoly power. Matt’s daily diet is the politics and policy of antitrust and he guides us...
Jul 17, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Blockchain is a technology that both bedazzles and bewilders! For its hard core advocates, it is seen as the answer to the problem of concentrated power on the internet. For others, its workings are as impenetrable as its implications. In this episode we are joined by Dr Thibault Schrepel , Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Law and Faculty Affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Center, who has made researching and teaching blockchain antitrust his specialty. We canvas the risks o...
Jul 03, 2019•29 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Digitalisation has transformed the advertising industry. Not only are advertisers now able to target consumers to a far greater extent than was possible with traditional advertising, but they are also able to track and assess the performance of their ads in ways previously unimaginable. What makes this all possible is the treasure trove of data that we, as consumers, generate with our inexhaustible digital footprints. But does it necessarily mean that the firms with the largest data-sets hold su...
Jun 19, 2019•43 min•Season 1Ep. 30
An expert panel appointed by the UK government has recently released its report on changes to competition policy to help unlock the opportunities of the digital economy. One of the co-authors, Professor Philip Marsden , describes it as a “quintessentially British” contribution to the global debate on whether we need adjustments to the law and/or regulation to deal with the competition challenges posed by power in digital markets. As a former enforcer at the UK Competition and Markets Authority, ...
Jun 05, 2019•46 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Just over a decade after a financial crisis that shook the world, regulators have worked over time to move the financial system from the brink of chaos back to safe ground. But while the preoccupation has been with financial stability, in many countries, it has not been good news for competition. Technological developments and data innovations have opened up more choice and new ways of banking for consumers. Nevertheless, many see Fintech as falling short of a serious challenge to the traditiona...
May 22, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 28
The advent of algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence have led some to argue that we are living in an age of “mass personalisation”. While the benefits of these technological advances are largely self-evident, there is a growing chorus of alarm. Concerns include increased risks of consumer manipulation, discrimination, loss of diversity and ultimately a loss of autonomy or the capacity to choose. Are we being suckered on a scale never seen before and how should consumer laws and...
May 08, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Neither the law nor economics are value-neutral sciences. If we are to understand why and how competition laws operate in a certain way in an individual jurisdiction, we need to understand the underlying values and belief systems that inform and shape its design and enforcement. In this episode, we are joined by Slaughter & May Professor of Competition Law and Director of the Centre for Competition Law and Policy at the University of Oxford, Ariel Ezrachi. Ariel shares his insights on the va...
Apr 17, 2019•46 min•Season 1Ep. 26
In this final (for now) episode in our series on blockchain, we move beyond the economic and legal analysis to consider whether this technology might inform and be part of a broader movement for political and social change. We are joined by Glen Weyl , founder and Chairman of the RadicalxChange Foundation, Principal Researcher at Microsoft and Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is co-author with Eric Posner of the rad...
Apr 03, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Blockchain technology and smart contracts hold some promise for reinvigorating competition, providing more efficient and secure ways of doing business on the internet, while at the same time lifting the bar in data protection and privacy. But is this new general purpose technology all that it’s made out to be? Will it challenge the power of the major digital platforms? And what are the risks that blockchain itself will become concentrated and fall prey to anti-competitive conduct? In this episod...
Mar 20, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Blockchain is not just bitcoin. It’s a general purpose technology that some say has the potential to revolutionise swathes of the economy, creating a new, more efficient, more secure way to exchange information and value. But just as was true of the early days of the internet, a real understanding of blockchain technology eludes many of us, making it difficult to think meaningfully about its promise and its pitfalls. In this episode we are joined by Dr Thibault Schrepel , Assistant Professor at ...
Mar 20, 2019•27 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Donald Trump’s frequent railings about “fake news” have gone viral, possibly even more so than the so-called “fake news” itself. For some, however, the proliferation of fake news on digital platforms is a serious problem. And many are asking whether it is a problem caused by the power of Facebook and Google over when, where and how we consume news. This episode investigates the meaning of the now often used, if not abused, term “fake news”. It explores whether this is a phenomenon that relates t...
Mar 06, 2019•25 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Facebook has been taking fire on a host of fronts from governments and regulators around the world. One of the latest to take aim is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in its Inquiry into Digital Platforms and their impact on media and advertising sectors. In episode 20 of the podcast Dr Katherine Kemp explained the key findings and recommendations in the ACCC’s preliminary report, in which the Commission proposed changes to merger review and increased regulatory scrutiny as resp...
Feb 20, 2019•55 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Traditional media has been transformed by technological change and across the world, governments and regulators are contemplating the impact of the disruption on the production and consumption of news. Central to this consideration is the influence of digital platforms, Google and Facebook particularly, which now in large part shape what news content we consume and when and how we consume it. Crucial to the platforms’ role as news gateways is the advertising that funds their business models, tra...
Feb 13, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Why is the United States falling behind global competition standards? What drives Margrethe Vestager in leading the European Commission’s aggressive stance on big tech? Why did the Federal Trade Commission walk away from its Google investigation? And why should agencies focus on solutions to market problems, not just big cases and massive fines? These are just some of the topics canvassed in this episode on competition institutions in a digital age, with Professor William Kovacic of George Washi...
Jan 30, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 19
As the year draws to a close, this episode takes us on a short stroll down memory lane, re-capping key debates and recurring themes and reliving some of the highlights and the lighter moments from the Competition Lore discussion over its first six months. Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition. Join Caron Beaton-...
Dec 19, 2018•23 min•Season 1Ep. 18
“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism”. That is the fundamental and irrefutable premise of a new book by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition , named one of the best economics books of 2018 by The Financial Times. Tepper and Hearn launch a stinging attack on high concentration and insipid competition in the US economy today, documenting and explaining its symptoms and side effects at length. This is a polemic that takes no ...
Dec 05, 2018•29 min•Season 1Ep. 17
The German legislature and competition agency are on the front foot in shoring up antitrust laws and taking action to deal with the challenges raised by a digital economy. Merger notification rules have been amended to ensure that acquisitions of small but significant competitors by the tech giants do not fall through the net. The Bundeskartellamt is engaged in a controversial investigation of Facebook’s data collection practices. And a raft of new regulation for platforms is on the drawing boar...
Nov 28, 2018•41 min•Season 1Ep. 16
When grappling with competition issues in the digital economy, Google is often the first name to come up. The tech powerhouse has been in the firing line of competition authorities in Europe. Its business model and strategies have sparked intense debate about what big data and big analytics mean for competition and how or even whether antitrust enforcers should respond. And, yet, for users who share their most intimate details with the search engine, Google has been equated with a "modern-day Go...
Nov 21, 2018•40 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Academics are making an important contribution to current debates regarding the policies and laws that govern competition in the digital era. Independence and objectivity in academic research are crucial to the value and impact of that contribution. In this second episode in our mini-series on Academics and Big Tech, you’ll hear from Professor Ioannis Lianos of University College London on why he considers there to be serious risks to the integrity of academic research as a result of undisclosed...
Nov 07, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Technological transformations are raising a host of legal and economic issues that are keeping competition law academics very busy! But are there risks to academic independence in the era of big tech? And are they any different to the experience with big oil, big tobacco, big pharma? Recently there has been publicity surrounding the extent to which large tech companies are funding academic research that supports their policy and legal objectives. Some are concerned that this threatens the integr...
Oct 31, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 13
“I think it’s hard to have a mission of wanting to bring the whole world closer together and leave out the biggest country..”. That was Mark Zuckerberg’s response when asked recently about Facebook’s record of attempted entry into China. By and large GAFA have struggled to compete in the largest economy in the world. Meanwhile BAT (the homegrown tech trio, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) represent the new Chinese dragons, dominating in search, e-commerce, messaging, AI and other digital market space...
Oct 17, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 12
On 18 July this year Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition czar, announced a record €4.3 billion fine against Google in relation to various practices concerning Android, the search giant’s popular mobile operating system. It comes just over a year after the European Commission’s €2.4 billion fine in the so-called Google Shopping case, discussed with Professor Pinar Akman on episode 7 of Competition Lore. The Android case relates to complex contractual agreements that Google requires phonemake...
Oct 03, 2018•30 min•Season 1Ep. 11
