Eric K. Clemons

"But to live outside the law, you must be honest
I know you always say that you agree"

Bob Dylan, "Absolutely Sweet Marie," Copyright © 1966 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1994 by Dwarf Music

Google has the power to do almost anything it wants. Time and again, it...

Piracy is a complicated issue. Companies that sell music, movies, software, or other content believe that the theft of intellectual property can destroy their business. Search companies, companies whose business models are based on posting other people's property surrounded by ads, or search companies whose business models are based in...

1. How do you value a company like Facebook?

Google has frequently been accused of search bias, that is, of presenting its search results in an unfair and subjective order. What does that mean? And why should anyone care?

What is search engine bias?

In one sense bias truly is the essence of any...

Relevant Market for Assessing Google Power

One of the first questions addressed in any antitrust inquiry is how to assess the relevant market. You need to know what market a company is in before you know if it dominates it, or if it enjoys monopoly power. This is not always...

This is part two of a two-part series. Read part one here.

Part 2 -- What I Would Want to Learn if I Could Ask Questions at the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Hearings

Next month the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights will hear...

This is part one of a two-part series.

Part 1: Why Hold a Hearing?

Introduction

Next month the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights will hear testimony from Eric Schmidt, Google's Executive Chairman and former CEO. People who think of Google as...

The FTC is investigating Google, and Google is mounting a massive public relations blitz in its own defense. Both are probably justified.

Not all the claims that Google offers in its own defense, or that its allies are offering, are justified. I have attempted to

Well, there is something happening out there in search engine land, and it's not pretty... Google got caught making a series of major mistakes, continuously, between 2003 and 2009, and the search engine press has noticed it.

Of course, it's hard not to notice these mistakes, given their...

What data should federal investigators seek to obtain from Google?

It would be a misreading of antitrust law to suggest, as some writers have, that American jurisprudence says antitrust law is only "about the consumer, stupid." Likewise, it would be a misreading of the law to claim that...

It's time to get serious about getting serious. It's time that we stop looking for easy answers to complex problems. It doesn't matter if America's current public thought processes are new and a result of exposure to television sound bites, short emails, and shorter Tweets. It doesn't matter if they...

This is the second installment of a two-part series. Read part one here.

I have posted before on what an antitrust case against Google might look like, on the correct issues on which to focus investigation, and on why consumers have reason...

A Guide for Assessing Arguments For and Against Investigation

The recent FTC investigation of Google has, as expected, produced a firestorm of response in blogs and in the popular press, and as expected much of it is quite supportive of Google. It's clearly premature to assume that an...

I explained in a recent companion post why the distribution of airline reservations was supposed to be so free, open, and transparent that it would not need continuing regulation, which is why the industry was deregulated in 2004. And yet American Airlines and US Airways have filed suit,...

Regulation in Travel Distribution

A spate of lawsuits is emerging between the travel industry's "Global Distribution Systems" ("GDS") and their customers. The first two lawsuits were filed by US Airways and American Airlines; other lawsuits, possibly including a federal antitrust suit brought by the Department of Justice, may...

Cloud computing has gotten enormous coverage lately, with claims for benefits that may or may not be realized. The cloud does not enable a wired and informed electorate; that comes from online services and Internet linkages, whether they are hosted in the cloud or in the government's own infrastructure. The...

This is the third installment in a three-part series on the Department of Justice, Google, and the Consent Decree. Read part one here and part two here.

The recent Consent Decree between the Department of Justice and Google sets a useful precedent...

This is the second installment in a three-part series on the Department of Justice, Google, and the Consent Decree. Read part one here.

A proper discussion of the benefits and limitations of the recent Consent Decree between the Department of Justice and Google, concerning...

A proper discussion of the benefits and limitations of the recent Consent Decree between the Department of Justice and Google, concerning Google's acquisition of ITA, needs to begin with a discussion of appropriate measures for consumer welfare, the ultimate objective of antitrust regulation, and with a discussion of the relationship...