I join Cato colleagues Ryan Bourne and Caleb Brown to discuss the rise and fall of tech monopolies over the years. Related here.
Posts Tagged ‘antitrust’
June 26 roundup
- European authorities may order social media platform to prevent Euro users from seeing allegedly defamatory comments maligning an Austrian politician. Can they also order the comments kept from American users, even if American law would treat them as protected expression? [Scott Shackford, Reason]
- By 6-3 margin, with three Justices concurring in part and dissenting in part, Supreme Court rules that First Amendment bars rule against registration of “scandalous” trademarks; Cato had submitted a humorous brief [Melissa Quinn, Washington Examiner, Ilya Shapiro, earlier; Iancu v. Brunetti]
- Mexico files charges of cultural appropriation against Carolina Herrera fashion house over native-inspired designs [Julie Zerbo, Fashion Law, AFP, related earlier on indigenous cultures and intellectual property]
- Schumpeterian innovation and the campaign to break up Big Tech [Ryan Bourne, Cato, earlier]
- “Another survey of consumer law professors fails to find any who always reads consumer contracts before signing them” [Jeff Sovern, earlier]
- Settlement of trademark, copyright claims over Star Control game series specifies that litigants must exchange honey and mead [Lee Hutchinson, ArsTechnica]
June 19 roundup
- Gorsuch: “A free society does not allow its government to try the same individual for the same crime until it’s happy with the result.” And yet he and Ginsburg were the only dissenters from the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision Monday in Gamble v. U.S. to allow consecutive state and federal prosecutions over the same conduct, the so-called dual sovereignty exception to double jeopardy protection [Reuters, Ilya Shapiro, Cato brief (with ACLU and Constitutional Accountability Center) that had urged an end to the exception; and a conspiracy theory about Kavanaugh that wound up having absolutely no predictive value]
- “When Should Plaintiffs Be Able to Sue Anonymously?” [Eugene Volokh]
- 77-year-old antitrust consent decrees were designed for a music business that long since faded into history, DOJ’s decision to reconsider is welcome [Federalist Society podcast with Kristen Osenga and Mark Schultz, Osenga blog post]
- Clarence Darrow once boasted a cult following among American lawyers. His manipulative speech in the Leopold/Loeb case leaves you to wonder whether much will outlive the hype [Bryan Caplan]
- Federal aid-to-state programs have exploded in recent years, a good way to redistribute money and power into the hands of political elites with little taxpayer or voter accountability [Chris Edwards, Cato, new study and blog post]
- Dear Caterpillar: do you think there is much likelihood of consumer confusion about whether this coffee shop t-shirt is promoting earth-moving machinery? [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
May 15 roundup
- “Banana Costume Copyright Assailed at Third Circuit” [Emilee Larkin, Courthouse News, earlier]
- In a new piece for The Bulwark, I sort through some comments by presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg critical of identity politics;
- Supreme Court’s decision in Apple v. Pepper, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining four liberals, takes a little nick out of Illinois Brick doctrine limiting antitrust suits [my new Cato post]
- Ninth Circuit will soon hear case in which judge ordered Idaho prison system to provide inmate with transgender surgery; I’m quoted saying lower court decision amounted to battle of the experts [Amanda Peacher, NPR/KBSX, plus followup piece (“medical necessity” not a fixed standard, definitions of cruel and unusual punishment hitched in some ways to public opinion) and NPR “Morning Edition”; audio clip]
- “The Moral Panic Behind Internet Regulation” [Matthew Lesh, Quillette] “A Single Global Standard for Internet Content Regulation Is a Recipe for Censorship” [Jacob Mchangama, Quillette] And Jonah Goldberg on right-wing rage at social media platform moderation;
- Some politicos in Britain engage in “‘karaoke Thatcherism’, preaching low-tax, low-regulation mantras divorced from new challenges or detail,” then falling for truly bad ideas like laws to assure real estate tenants indefinite tenure against owners’ wishes [Ryan Bourne]
May 9 roundup
- Next sector for a boom in IP litigation: trade secrets? [Ike Brannon]
- Creating split among federal appeals courts, Seventh Circuit rules auto-erotic asphyxiation falls under insurance policy exclusion for “self-inflicted injury.” [Volokh; Tran v. Minnesota Life Insurance Company] In its commentary, the Institute for Justice is willing to go there: “Will the Supreme Court resolve the split? Don’t hold your breath.”
- “The county has assigned at least four prosecutors to handle the Bellevue cat case” as Miska, the most notorious cat in King County, Washington, lawyers up [KIRO, update]
- I’m quoted in article on Supreme Court’s agreeing to consider whether 1964 ban on employment discrimination because of sex includes ban on transgender discrimination [Nicole Russell, Washington Examiner]
- Federalist Society podcast on populist antitrust with Babette Boliek, Geoffrey Manne, William Rinehart, Hal Singer, and Joanna Tsai;
- Did a mobile home park violate housing discrimination law by checking applicants’ lawful immigration status? Fourth Circuit ruling threatens to open “disparate-impact” floodgates Supreme Court warned of in earlier case [Ilya Shapiro and Nathan Harvey on Cato cert amicus in Waples Mobile Home Park v. de Reyes]
King of the Hill (tech antitrust division)
Mar 2000: Palm Pilot IPO’s at $53 billion
Sep 2006: “Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cellphone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.’” – David Pogue (NYT)…
Jun 2007: iPhone released
Nov 2007: “Nokia: One Billion Customers—Can Anyone Catch the Cell Phone King?” (Forbes)
A brief history of impregnable tech monopolies that were pregnable after all, from personal computers to music distribution to social media, by Geoffrey Manne and Alec Stapp [Truth on the Market][adapted and condensed from Cato at Liberty]
Social media law roundup
- Was this an entry in a contest to draft the most unconstitutional bill? “Florida Bill Would Make It a Crime for Minors to Post Pictures of Guns on Social Media” [Eugene Volokh]
- “Everyone involved in politics has bad days, when one’s interests conflict with one’s ideals.” But conservatives should resist the temptation to call in government to regulate the Internet [John Samples] New Republican interest in antitrust explainable by wish to bust corporations considered unfriendly to Republicans [Steven Greenhut]
- Lafayette, La. mother jailed after posting video to social media showing fight between two high school students [Megan Wyatt, The Advocate; editorial; Dave Cohen, WWL]
- Suit over online harassment could puncture liability protections of Section 230, some hope and others fear [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
- “So, to be blunt here, Warren’s campaign screwed up with its ad design [by] including the [Facebook] logo.” The really bad part, though, was the spinning afterward [Scott Shackford]
- Tweeting wrong sorts of things about gender can result in a visit from the British police, cont’d [Tom Potter, Ipswich Star (Suffolk; quoting local activist who “said police had a right to intervene if it was felt the posts were causing offence.”)] And another case from Hitchin, Hertfordshire [Martin Beckford, Daily Mail; earlier here, here, etc.
- Content moderation “is, in many ways, the commodity that platforms offer.” Will they be left free to offer it? [Will Duffield, Cato Journal, reviewing Custodians of the Internet by Tarleton Gillespie]
March 13 roundup
- “Near the end of her new proposal to break up Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple, Senator Warren asks, ‘So what would the Internet look like after all these reforms?’ It’s a good question.” [Geoffrey Manne and Alec Stapp, Truth on the Market/CNBC]
- Floral arrangements as constitutionally protected expression: Cato files amicus on behalf of First Amendment rights of Washington florist Barronelle Stutzman not to serve a wedding of which she disapproves [Ilya Shapiro and Patrick Moran, Washington Supreme Court]
- “Over several months, man repeatedly threatens his next-door neighbor with profanity, racial epithets. The police investigate, warn the man to stop, and then arrest him when he does not. Eventually, the man leaves the apartment complex after the landlord declines to renew his lease. Can the neighbor sue the landlord for failing to intervene sooner? The Second Circuit says yes, the neighbor’s Fair Housing Act claims should not have been dismissed. Dissent: The FHA doesn’t say landlords can be liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment; more likely it precludes such claims.” [IJ “Short Circuit” on Francis v. Kings Park Manor, Second Circuit; Scott Greenfield]
- Gender identity: R. Shep Melnick on where the momentum is headed among judges, regulators, and administrators [Liberty and Law]
- Comfort for lawmakers means discomfort for taxpayers? Study finds “growth in state government expenditures in warm states was higher after the introduction of air conditioning” [Thomas A. Garrett and Natalia A. Kolesnikova, Cato Journal]
- “Succubustic” is not a word you should probably use at all, certainly not to describe any real person, and most definitely not if you are a lawyer to describe a judge [Lowering the Bar]
January 30 roundup
- “Battle over stolen diamond-studded golden eagle takes flight as insurer fights order to pay up” [Jason Proctor, CBC]
- Fentanyl test strips save lives. Feds oppose their distribution [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
- D.C. Circuit judicial nominee Neomi Rao (full disclosure: an old friend) “comes under fire for undergraduate writings on sexual assault — though her views from 25 years ago are consistent with today’s statutes and rulings.” [K.C. Johnson, City Journal]
- One reason the costs of rent control policies get understated: it’s hard to control and account for declines in the quality of apartment services [Richard McKenzie and Dwight Lee, Cato Regulation magazine]
- Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention video panel on antitrust law transparency with Deb Garza, Hon. Frank Easterbrook (“Always remember that sunlight is full of ultraviolet radiation”), Eric Grannon (incentive problems of “amnesty plus” program; “moral turpitude” provisions, more on which), moderated by Hon. John Nalbandian;
- Big reason military and health care procurement is so pricey: “scads of less specific programs out there [are] insanely cheaper and more functional, but those programs cannot justify the costs of becoming compliant” [from Tyler Cowen comments]
Monopoly 911 ambulance franchise laws
In California, ambulance companies pay local governments for monopoly franchises on 911 calls, then send the bill to insurers: “So cash strapped counties are in on the business of fleecing insurance companies, and through them, people and businesses who pay premiums” [John H. Cochrane]