Competition/Antitrust

The Federal Trade Commission is tackling a central question of competition: Are the goals of antitrust enforcement in the United States best pursued by applying what’s known as the consumer welfare standard? But what does it mean just to safeguard “consumer” welfare?

Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim shot down the idea that new antitrust laws are necessary to address large tech companies, telling an audience of industry leaders that existing rules are ”perfectly equipped, at least for now.” Critics argue that tech companies have amassed significant market power through their vast networks of users and pools of data, but that their dominance is overlooked because their services are free or inexpensive. Delrahim contends, however, that price isn’t the only way government officials can measure how firms affect consumers.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) want more information from the Federal Communications Commission on a petition from USTelecom seeking regulatory relief from some unbundling requirements, as well as details on the agency’s recent Connect America Fund broadband subsidy auction.

Amid growing concern over the power of such behemoths as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other tech giants, in recent months there’s been a bipartisan push for better enforcement of antitrust rules–with even President Trump saying in August that their size and influence could constitute a “very antitrust situation.” The Federal Trade Commission has launched its most wide-ranging study of corporate concentration in America in more than 20 years with a series of hearings being held around the country.

The trend of people cutting their home Internet connections in favor of wireless online connectivity is accelerating, according to the latest survey from Pew Research. No doubt fed by falling prices for wireless service and the spread of unlimited data plans, Internet cord cutting has now reached one in five Americans, almost double the level of two years ago. The percentage of people who say they depend solely on their smartphones to connect to the Internet has risen steadily from 8% in 2013, to 12% in 2016, to 20% in 2018.

The buzz over “5G,” the next generation of wireless technology, has been heating up, but most of the hype fails to account for the fact that a robust, innovative, and affordable 5G wireless ecosystem for all Americans will not result from empowering and allocating the best public airwaves to the four nationwide mobile carriers alone.

The Antitrust Division has been extraordinarily busy in our daily efforts to protect consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs through sound and vigorous antitrust enforcement and competition advocacy throughout the government.  Apart from our direct enforcement efforts, the Division has implemented a wide range of initiatives designed to advance competition both nationally and internationally.  These efforts do not always draw the same interest as our enforcement cases, but can be just as essential, if not more so, to our efforts to protect American consumers and businesses.  

In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons described the agency's enforcement of antitrust laws, advocacy work, and the public hearings it is hosting on a variety of competition and consumer protection issues. And he outlined a series of notable victories in stopping anticompetitive mergers and conduct. The widespread use of technology and data often offer consumer benefits, but may also raise new competition issues, according to the testimony.