If you support the newly proposed American Privacy Rights Act because it will eliminate the "patchwork" of state privacy laws, but are skeptical of a top-down federal privacy mandate (as you should be!), read on! @Jim_Harper and I have a better solution. 🧵 1/19 @Jim_Harper First, here is the link to our short paper describing our "privacy choice-of-law" proposal and explaining why it is preferable to a federal privacy regime. 2/19laweconcenter.org/resources/a-ch…

What market is Amazon in?

Retail? Online shopping? How about the “online superstore market”?

If that sounds entirely made up, it's because it is.

Here's how the FTC's market gerrymandering reveals its misunderstanding of competition in its Amazon case. 🧵 1/19 First, I have a new @laweconcenter Issue Brief on this topic that goes into much more depth. 2/19laweconcenter.org/resources/gerr…

The @LawEconCenter today published our comprehensive working paper - authored by @kristianstout, @RBenSperry and me - examining online intermediary liability and potential reforms to Section 230. A thread on some of our findings.
laweconcenter.org/resource/who-m… 1/ Tl;dr: Defenders of Sec. 230 status quo haven’t made their case for online intermediary immunity from suit for tortious/criminal conduct by users. There are good args., but far too many unsupported claims to est. that immunity is optimal. 2/

Some thoughts on US v. Google and the DOJ's problematic focus on search *distribution* THREAD 1/12 The complaint defines markets in search, but focuses almost exclusively on alleged exclusionary conduct around search distribution.

That’s important because it opens the door wide to a crucial defense: 2/12

I was asked to give comments to the House Judiciary Committee on its investigation into competition in digital markets. You can read them in full here: icle.xyz/3bzZ92L

My comments focus on how weak the case for reform really is [THREAD] 1a) Market concentration is rising nationally because it is *falling* locally.

National firms are expanding & competing with each other at local level. This helps explain the 'paradox' of concentration rising as prices fall: we’re looking at concentration in the wrong place

The gov’t of CA released its estimate of the costs/bens of the CCPA: bit.ly/2pqcyao

Bottom line costs: $55B up front & $16.5B over next 10 yrs

Bottom line benefits? Um, lots! Yeah, lots

Here’s why costs are actually much higher & benefits don’t come close. [thread] There’s a lot of fuzziness in estimating the benefits of privacy regs to consumers, as well as the costs of compliance.

Among other things (if you can believe it) no one actually knows how many businesses CCPA will cover.