Eric Posner discusses the US antitrust law challenges for Big Tech companies
After a long period of stagnation, United States antitrust law has experienced a jolt of adrenaline, thanks in large part to public anxiety about the enormous economic and cultural power of Big Tech. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (which owns Google), and Facebook are the five largest companies in the US by market capitalisation. All of these firms are ubiquitous presences in people’s lives. And all of them (except Microsoft, which has tended its operating system monopoly but not tried to extend it) have been subject to a torrent of criticism about their allegedly anticompetitive practices, now the subject of a spate of lawsuits by the US government, the state governments, and private parties.
