Viewing profile — todd-davies

Correct, the click through from AI Overview is better than nothing, but it's not typically (anywhere near as) high as it would have been if the website was shown in the results wit…

The argument of technical impossibility seems implausible, although it would no-doubt be difficult. Whether there can be enough engineering will mustered within the company to sepa…

I think the competition/antitrust law community is beginning to develop some effective antibodies against some of these. Bork's ideas are pretty well and truly debunked these days,…

Absolutely not! But I've never been a materialistic person and lived below my means while I worked in tech, so my quality of life didn't really drop. Although academia isn't anywhe…

I guess it depends on your circumstances. In Europe, for instance, the cost of a degree is sometimes quite low. My gateway from tech to law was a part-time masters degree in politi…

Many of us in the antitrust/competition law community are trying. One issue, specific to digital markets, is that the field has very few people who are both legally and technically…

Criminal sanctions in competition/antitrust law cases are an option in some jurisdictions, notably in the US and the UK (but not in the EU). For an ageing but interesting case, see…

There are a few ways to think about this. One is deterrence based on cost-benefit analysis, which is essentially a game theoretic way to think about firm behaviour. The logic here …

(edit) TL;DR: see tivert's comment. In most cases, the Commission sets a fine which is based on the harm caused by some anti-competitive conduct, with relatively small adjustments …

Note that this fine is made up of 0.04bn of fine and 1.8bn of deterrent against future anti-competitive behaviour [1]. The the 2006 fine-setting guidelines allow the Commission to …

The specific guidelines that the Commission is relying on were written in 2006 [1]. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A...

> In October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a set of rules that if implemented would transform how financial institutions handle personal data about thei…

No worries :) You're right that the law shouldn't be arbitrary. Lots of what the law is applied only when a cases passes legal tests to determine if some conduct violates the law. …

Let's wait and see what the remedy will be in this case. For the past few decades, antitrust enforcement has mostly relied on fines as opposed to requiring firms do something diffe…

> It seems like the implicit assumption is that there must be a harm somewhere, we just haven't found it yet... isn't any business's primary purpose to compete with / harm competit…

I can't think of a good example for a sass product. I'm sure it goes on though and I'm always interested in hearing about examples! A similar strategy which seems to be quite commo…

Yes, it's a bit of a problem for the field! Like many aspects of antitrust, predatory pricing applies cleanly for an industrial-era economy but as you point out, it's less clear ho…

Dropping prices below cost to wipe out competitors is predatory pricing which is prohibited under the antitrust laws. It's not always easy to prosecute, but it against the law neve…

Great example. Another one is state governments joining a union or federal system, such as US states joining the Union or European states joining the EU, and becoming bound by fede…

For sure they are throwing lawyers at it. It's 13bn after all. But the underlying reason for the appeal is the same; the law is not yet clear as to what should happen.