July 20, 2022
We, the undersigned economic, legal, and public policy experts, write to express concern over legislative and executive branch proposals aimed at dramatically expanding government antitrust and competition regulation authority over the technology sector and ultimately the entire economy. Now is a particularly important time to remind policymakers that the principles embodied in the consumer welfare standard and light touch regulation remain relevant, applicable, and vital to our future prosperity.
Earlier this year, several antitrust bills were introduced in the U.S. Senate, supposedly to improve competition in the U.S technology sector. In reality these bills would punish American companies for offering integrated services, regardless of the benefits to consumers those services provide, and make a number of common business practices like selling private labels alongside name brands a violation of antitrust laws. Rather than advancing helpful competition standards based on sound economics, these proposals would require U.S. tech firms to obtain government pre-approval to promote and integrate new products. Such proposals are not based on any findings of market power or the ability to exclude rivals. Instead these are punitive measures that target a handful of tech firms that fall under a set of arbitrary criteria.
Many of us have warned about proposals that distort existing antitrust standards and fail to focus on harm to consumers. The Senate bills would almost certainly lead to such harm. They would disrupt the processes through which tech firms design new products and operate, thereby impairing competition in such markets. They would also erode the ability of American firms to compete with rivals in China and elsewhere in a wide range of emerging technologies, ranging from existing digital products to artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and quantum computing.
Government-required break-ups, restructuring, or restrictions on business models do not usually serve the interests of the consumers whom public officials seek to protect. If companies are utilizing business practices in demonstrably anticompetitive ways to harm consumers, existing antitrust law adequately equips the government with the tools to take reasonable action. These proposals seek to shift the focus of antitrust law away from helping consumers and toward bolstering competitors, thereby hindering economic growth and undermining decades of existing antitrust precedent. Moreover, they do not offer a solution to broader concerns about technology and privacy.
It is extremely rare to see proposals that would dramatically increase antitrust authority for only a small number of targeted companies. This could represent a very troubling turning point in competition policy that substantially shifts the focus away from the consumer welfare standard and endangers future innovation and competition. Accordingly, we urge public officials to avoid unnecessary, overzealous changes to antitrust laws that would weaken an already fragile economy and instead look for targeted reforms to improve the lives of consumers and promote pro-growth policies.
Pete Sepp
National Taxpayers Union
Asheesh Agarwal
Former Assistant Director,
Federal Trade Commission
Charles W. Baird
California State University, East Bay
Ashley Baker
Committee for Justice
Don Bellante
University of South Florida
James T. Bennett
George Mason University
Bruce L. Benson
Florida State University
Michael T. Bond
University of Arizona
Samuel Bostaph
University of Dallas
Donald J. Boudreaux
George Mason University
Scott Bradford
Brigham Young University
Jason Brennan
Georgetown University
Wayne T. Brough
R Street Institute
Peter T. Calcagno
College of Charleston
James H. Cardon
Brigham Young University
Yong Chao
University of Louisville
Joe Cobb
Retired
Joab Corey
University of California, Riverside
Wayne Crews
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Joseph S. DeSalvo
University of South Florida, Tampa
Anthony Dukes
University of Southern California
Gerald P. Dwyer
Clemson University
James Edwards
Conservatives for Property Rights
Richard A. Epstein
NYU School of Law; the Hoover Institution; the University of Chicago Law School
John A. Flanders
Central Methodist University
Vivek Ghosal
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Tom Giovanetti
Institute for Policy Innovation
Casey Given
Young Voices
Stephan F. Gohmann
University of Louisville
Kenneth V. Greene
Binghamton University
Stephen K. Happel
Arizona State University
Jeff Haymond
Cedarville University
Tom Hebert
Open Competition Center
Patrick Hedger
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
David R. Henderson
Hoover Institution
Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin
American Action Forum
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
San Jose State University
Mark A. Jamison
University of Florida and the American Enterprise Institute
Raymond J. Keating
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Daniel B. Klein
George Mason University
Richard N. Langlois
University of Connecticut
Kent Lassman
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Thomas Lehman
Indiana Wesleyan University
Curt Levey
Committee For Justice
Stan J. Liebowitz
University of Texas, Dallas
Tony Lima
Professor Emeritus of Economics, California State University, East Bay
Christopher Lingle
Universidad Francisco Marroquin
Carrie Lukas
Independent Women's Forum
Abir Mandal
University of Mount Olive
Michael L. Marlow
California Polytechnic State University
Scott E. Masten
University of Michigan
Beverly McKittrick
FreedomWorks
W. Douglas McMillin
Louisiana State University (Emeritus)
Jessica Melugin
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Jim Miller
Former Chairman, Federal Trade Commission
Dan Mitchell
Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Michael C. Munger
Duke University
Iain Murray
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Grover Norquist
Americans for Tax Reform
Patrice Onwuka
Independent Women's Forum
Yael Ossowski
Consumer Choice Center
Sam Peltzman
University of Chicago, Booth School (Emeritus)
Eric Peterson
Pelican Center for Technology and Innovation
Steve Pociask
American Consumer Institute
Aurelien Portuese
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Arturo C. Porzecanski
American University
Barry W. Poulson
University of Colorado Boulder
Andrew F. Quinlan
Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Nancy Roberts
Arizona State University
Paul Rubin
Emory University (Emeritus)
John Ruggiero
University of Dayton
Joseph T. Salerno
Mises Institute
Timothy Sandefur
Goldwater Institute
Charles Sauer
Market Institute
Dan Savickas
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Tom Schatz
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
William Franklin Shughart II
Utah State University
Vernon L. Smith
Chapman University
Daniel J. Smith
Middle Tennessee State University
Daniel Sutter
Troy University
John Tamny
FreedomWorks
Edward Tower
Duke University
Liad Wagman
Illinois Institute of Technology
Jeffrey Westling
American Action Forum
Josh Withrow
R Street Institute
Bill Z. Yang
Georgia Southern University
Ryan Young
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Benjamin Zycher
American Enterprise Institute
Institutional affiliations are provided for identification purposes only.