Mathew Ingram: Last week, the chief executive officers of the four major tech platforms -- Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook -- appeared (virtually) before Congress, part of a year-long investigation into whether antitrust regulators need to take action against them for anti-competitive behavior: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/the-tech-titans-go-virtually-to-washington.php Was the hearing just a sideshow, or a sign that Congress plans to change the rules that apply to these digital behemoths? And if regulations did change, or antitrust action was triggered, what would -- or should -- that look like? How does competition law need to adapt in order to deal with web-based services whose economic underpinnings are light years away from railroads and the oil industry?
To try and answer some or all of these questions, we're speaking this week to a group of experts in law, politics, and technology. Our next guest is Sandeep Vaheesan, who is the legal director at the Open Markets Institute. He previously served as a regulations counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he helped develop and draft the first comprehensive federal rule on payday, vehicle title, and high-cost installment loans. Sandeep has published articles on a variety of topics in antitrust law in a number of journals, including the Harvard Law & Policy Review.
Sandeep, thanks very much for doing this. Maybe you could start by giving us your thoughts either on the hearing itself or on the process that has gotten us here, and where things stand as far as antitrust and the digital platforms, and then we can dig into some of the details.
Sandeep Vaheesan: Thanks for having me on, Mathew.
The hearing was a major success and an important reassertion of Congress's power to structure economic life, including in digital markets. Congress has been silent for so long on these questions. It felt like a throwback to an earlier time when Congress took its oversight function and matters of market governance seriously. It was an important public step and the product of more than a year of careful investigation and diligence by the House Antitrust Subcommittee and its staff.
Now the public wants to know what will come next. The Subcommittee will publish a report describing its findings, which will shed a great deal of light on the structures and practices of these giants. Last week's hearing was a preview of what the report will cover.
And regardless of what Congress does, federal and state investigations into Amazon, Facebook, and Google will continue. Antitrust enforcers already have the authority to challenge many of the unfair practices of these companies. Legal action against them is not contingent on new antitrust legislation from Congress.
Read the full Q&A on Galley by CJR.