Welcome to The Corner. In this issue, we discuss how efforts by the European Union to regulate Big Tech are failing, Senator Klobuchar’s newly proposed antitrust law, and how a new bill amending Section 230 strikes a careful balance in the regulation of online speech.

🔊 ANTI-MONOPOLY RISING:

• HD Media, a West Virginia based media organization filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook and Google at the end of January. The lawsuit is the first filed that focuses on news publishing. HD Media claims that Google and Facebook have illegally monopolized the ad market and have engaged in price-fixing. This loss of revenue, according to the lawsuit, has led to the decline of the local newspaper industry. (Associated Press)
   

• The European Commission settled an agreement with South African pharmaceutical company Aspen after the corporation dramatically hiked the price of drugs intended to treat hematological cancers, despite the fact that they had been off patent for 50 years. Aspen agreed to cut the price of its drugs by an average of 73%. (Reuters)
   

• The Federal Trade Commission ordered Amazon to pay over $61.7 million to flex drivers, who are independent contractors making deliveries for Amazon, after allegations that the company stole tips from drivers. According to the FTC, Amazon engaged in this practice for two and a half years. (Tech Crunch)

• The Open Markets Institute’s letter with the Authors Guild, and six other writers associations calling on the Justice Department to move immediately to block the conglomerate Bertelsmann from buying book publisher Simon & Schuster was covered in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post,  MSN, Yahoo! News, Publishers Marketplace, Publishers Lunch, Publisher’s Weekly, Competition Policy International, Book Browse, MuckRack, Universal Personality, and World Pro News. “The time has come for law enforcers to do their job, and rebuild an open and competitive marketplace for books. Our democracy hangs in the balance.”
   
• The Open Markets Institute published a statement condemning Google and Facebook for bullying Australia with threats to block the entire country from search services and news link sharing abilities. The statement was mentioned in Tech News World, Internet Cloning, and Estar Informado. “Today Google and Facebook proved in dramatic fashion that they pose existential threats to the world’s democracies. The two corporations are exploiting their monopoly control over essential communications to extort, bully, and cow a free people.” 
   
• Sandeep Vaheesan published a piece in Bloomberg Law detailing how President Joe Biden can make good on his past statements condemning the use of noncompete clauses for American workers by making good appointments to the Federal Trade Commission. “Regardless of whether Congress enacts legislation, the Biden administration has the power to ban noncompetes for all workers.”
   
• Claire Kelloway published a piece that ran in The Fence Post about Tyson, JBS, and other packers paying millions to settle poultry and pork price-fixing suits. “While hundreds of millions for cheated customers is nothing to sneeze at, it is not clear if these payments will discourage future collusion.”
   
• Sally Hubbard was quoted in Retail Dive emphasizing the dangers of Google’s power over online search ads. She was also quoted in Times of India and Eminetra. "There's no competition for search ads because Google has a monopoly on search. What does that lead to? Higher prices for consumers, less money available for [advertisers'] employees, less money for innovation," Hubbard said.
   
• Daniel Hanley was quoted in Teller Report commenting on Jeff Bezos handing over Amazon’s management to Andy Jassy, previous head of Amazon Web Services. He was also quoted in  News Beezer, News Splinter, Variety Info, and Welt. “Corona,” says Daniel Hanley, tech analyst at the Washington-based think tank Open Markets Institute, “has led to an almost total dependence on Amazon's cloud. A significant part of our professional and social life is in the hands of a single corporation.”
   
• Open Markets’ report on Amazon’s surveillance was mentioned in The American Prospect in relation to new documentation that shows Amazon plans to install surveillance cameras in its “last mile” delivery vehicles. The report, released last September, was also mentioned by OneZero, eSellerCafe, and News Break.
   
• Claire Kelloway was interviewed in The Check Out Radio podcast about proposition 22, Big Tech, and the antitrust movement overall. “At its core, [antitrust] is a way of regulating industry and it’s about balancing market power in the economy, setting fair terms of conduct, leveling the playing field, and outlawing things like tying, bundling, and exclusive dealing.”
   
• Daniel Hanley was quoted in S&P Global commenting on the propensity of President Joe Biden’s administration to scrutinize fintech megadeals “Hanley believes [the administration] will take a more aggressive approach to antitrust issues."

📈 VITAL STAT:

$8 trillion

The combined market capitalization of Big Tech in 2020. 

📚 WHAT WE'RE READING:

• “Mandating Digital Platform Support for the Press” (Harvard Journal of Law &Technology, Neil Weinstock Netanel): Netanel proposes a series of legislative initiatives that mandate support for journalism from digital platforms. Some of the author’s solutions include mandating that platforms include links to a publisher's website and display third party media watchdog trustworthiness rating on posts. The author concludes that the proposed solutions should survive First Amendment scrutiny.

Simon & Schuster published Monopolies Suck by Sally Hubbard on Oct. 27. The book is the first by Hubbard, who is Open Markets’ director of enforcement strategy. Hubbard examines how modern monopolies rob Americans of a healthy food supply, the ability to care for the sick, and a habitable planet, because monopolies use business practices that deplete rather than generate. Monopolists also threaten fair elections, our free press, our privacy, and, ultimately, the American Dream, Hubbard shows. In Monopolies Suck, Hubbard reminds readers that antitrust enforcers already have the tools to dismantle corporate power and that decisive action must be taken before monopolies undermine our economy and democracy for generations to come. In Monopolies Suck, Sally provides an important new view of America’s monopoly crisis and of the political and economic harms of concentrated private power. Order your copy here. 

St. Martin’s Press has published Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn’s new book, Liberty from All Masters. 

Liberty is Lynn’s first book since 2010’s Cornered. In his new work, Lynn warns of the threat to liberty and democracy posed by Google, Amazon, and Facebook, because of their ability to manipulate the flows of information and business in America. Barry then details how Americans over the course of two centuries built a “System of Liberty,” and shows how we Americans can put this system to work again today. Lynn also offers a hopeful vision for how we can use anti-monopoly law to rebuild our society and our democracy from the ground up.

Liberty from All Masters has already made waves for its empowering call to restore democracy by resurrecting forgotten tools and institutions. “Very few thinkers in recent years have done more to shift debate in Washington than Barry Lynn. In Liberty from All Masters, he proves himself as a lyrical theorist and a bold interpreter of history. This book is an elegant summoning of a forgotten tradition that can help the nation usher in a new freedom,” says Franklin Foer, author of World Without Mind and national correspondent for The Atlantic.

You can order your copy of Lynn’s book here. 

We would love to hear from you—just reply to this e-mail and drop us a line. Give us your feedback, alert us to competition policy news, or let us know your favorite story from this issue.