Big Tech & Antitrust, featuring @makandelrahim, @Sally_Hubbard, @tylercowen, @zingales, and moderated by @davidfaber. #BigTech 
: I'm reminded of US v Microsoft. Tech platforms controlling arena in which the game is played and also playing the game. Result: Playing field for competition that is quite distorted = Platform privilege. #BigTech
Question is whether they do have marketpower on the advertising side? Yes. Two providers control more than 80 percent of the market.... #BigTech
We know Google searches give priority (extremely important for decision-making). HUGE difference between rankings.... Enormous amount of power that I'm not sure Google has used yet. #BigTech
Online advertising - much cheaper, better quality & service than other options. Not a monopoly - Facebook & Google provide better service at better price. New options for consumer advertising.... Facebook great engine of anti-monopoly.
Want businesses that want to innovate and have the ability to become monopolists. Being big is NOT bad. Being big behaving badly however, is bad (Microsoft 20yrs ago)
Just because you're an innovator doesn't mean you're exempt from the laws. If evidence of doing what Microsoft did... should be a violation of antitrust laws....
- Google shopping case, Google Android case, Amazon prioritizing own products and services on platform (using others utilizing the platform as a petri dish).
Antitrust statutes say nothing about low prices, but competition. Low prices not end all be all of antitrust....
Diversity of choice on Amazon - gone up. No one would suggest the contrary....
Need to go after Google today. Evidence - the FTC did an investigation and found evidence of abuse - now why did the FTC vote 5-0 not to proceed?
In the future does this favor innovation or not? The fact that they try to preempt, they're behind the infrastructure to look for places and competing in those places.... they do use that power. That's where they preempt innovation.
On Google - tools available to do what you need to do? @makandelrahim Congress has not empowered us to look at beyond competition. As far as tools - antitrust laws and how they've developed do provide us with the tools to test it.
Bringing a case to regulate behavior - needs to be a violation of law and evidence to win in court.
Making sure we have the proper econometrics and evidence to bring a case.... Just because innovative not immune from antitrust laws....
I bet there is a decent amount of consumers who would pay for their data not to be shared.... To extent consumers begin to value their own data - new markets created.
Search by Voice - competition to who wins this. Much more powerful product and analysis is going to be important. Will Amazon only direct voice search to their own products?
Alexa already recommending Amazon batteries... Going to be a growing problem.
Data portability introduced by EU - powerful tool for competition.
Can easily change our phone number between mobile providers, Why can't we do the same for transferring bank accounts? It's a nightmare currently.
European privacy law - biggest threat to competition. It is the smaller companies, up and coming competitors, that will be crushed by EU privacy law.
Don't buy this... GDPR - data belongs to the citizen. Big risk to facebook and google. Source of their dominance is their ability to track users across the web and 360 view of tracking activity....
Taking that 360 view away - level the playing field for competition and digital advertising.
I'm concerned about the concentration in few hands - whether it be government or private sector. This is the Big Brother.
Two sided platforms - huge efficiencies, but difficult for others to compete on the other end.
