Do Antirust Concerns Imply More or Less Privacy?

Jeffrey Miron and Pedro Braga SoaresU.S. authoritieshave recentlyfiled complaints against Big Tech companies for both enabling and for omitting user privacy features on their respective products. According to theFTC, Facebook privacy settings deceived users about the ability to control their privacy. At the same time, state Attorney Generals accuse Google of harming competition in the ad business by blocking cookies used to track and target users of its Chrome browser. Together, these cases suggest a fundamental incoherence in current antitrust enforcement.From a consumer welfare standpoint, it is not clear that Big Tech engages in anti ‐​competitive behavior, since many of their services are free. The consumer welfare standard says courts should focus on the impacts of business practices on consumers, rather than alleged downsides to competitors. In the U.S., this has promptedsomescholars andpolicymakers to call for replacement of the consumer welfare standard.Putting consumer welfare aside would probably requirelegislativeoverhaul. So antitrustauthorities and lawscholars have recently focused on claiming that Big Tech hurts consumers through lower quality services, namely, less privacy protection. This is the gist of a 2020 complaint by theFTC and 48states against Facebook.Whatever the merits of “lower quality” arguments, they at least make sense from a consumer welfare standpoint.Economictheory isambiguous on the relation between market pow...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs