AAI’s Alexander Says Feds Should Consider Avenues Other Than Antitrust Litigation to Address Issues with Big Tech

The National Law Journal’s July 1, 2021 article “Despite FTC’s ‘Hiccup,’ Lawyers Say an Antitrust Surge Is Still Coming for Silicon Valley” covers the “collapse” of two major lawsuits against Facebook. AAI Vice President of Policy Laura Alexander weighed in.

From the article:

Momentum is also strong for antitrust challenges on the left. The new head of the FTC, Lina Khan, came to prominence for her writings as a legal scholar arguing that a traditional antitrust framework that focused only on consumer harm was antiquated and didn’t properly capture issues with companies like Amazon that yield vast market power without raising prices on consumers.

Other major antitrust suits brought under the Trump administration are continuing, including the Justice Department’s case against Google. DOJ lawyers told a judge on Tuesday that they expect to depose Google employees in that suit later this summer.

Laura Alexander, the vice president of policy at the American Antitrust Institute think tank, said Congress and federal agencies should consider avenues other than antitrust litigation to address issues with Big Tech such as data privacy. But she said cases like those against Facebook and Google remain critical.

“I think it’s incredibly important to recognize that antitrust is a powerful tool with a long history and that it absolutely can be used to check conduct and hold tech companies to account,” Alexander said. “It’s not surprising that there would be some hiccups along the way.”