Vox

Antitrust crusaders have built up serious momentum in Washington, making a strong case that big companies (especially big tech companies) are distorting the market to drive out competitors. We need a new standard for monopolies, they argue, one that focuses less on consumer harm and more on the skewed incentives produced by a company the size of Facebook or Google. Here's the case against four of the movement’s biggest targets, and what they might look like if they came out on the losing end. 

Securus provides technology services to prisons and jails and has been slammed by inmates’ families who say they’re charged outrageous prices to phone loved ones. The controversy has extended into video call and email services, two other places the company has staked a claim. In October, the company was hit with a $1.7 million fine for allegedly misleading the Federal Communications Commission.

Tim Wu thinks it’s time to break up Facebook. Wu has a new book coming out in November 2018 called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. Breaking up Facebook (and other huge tech companies like Google and Amazon) could be simple under the current law, suggests Wu. But it could also lead to a major rethinking of how antitrust law should work in a world where the giant platform companies give their products away for free, and the ability for the government to restrict corporate power seems to be diminishing by the day.