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PFF Senior Fellow and Director, Adam Thierer praises Professor Ed Felten's remarks on the legal mud-slinging between Microsoft-Google. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the Microsoft-Yahoo merger and Google’s immediate and vociferous opposition to it, Ed Felten is 100% right when he says of Google’s actions:“Complaining has downsides for Google too — a government skeptical of acquisitions by dominant high-tech companies could easily boomerang and cause Google its own antitrust headaches down the road.” ...On the days their own butts are on the line, they (corporations) tell us the antitrust authorities are villainous scum that must be defeated at all cost! The next day—when their competitors are in the crosshairs—the antitrust officials are regarded as benevolent knights possessing Solomonic wisdom, and we’re told that we should trust them to guide us to an economic promised land called “perfect competition.” While I agree that corporations may fall on their own swords when running for government regulators' offices seeking help against the competition, I find other sources potentially more harmful in their incitement of government market intervention: self-ordained consumer advocates such as EFF and PK and what I call their private sector war on creators.
When innovation in the digital economy is essential for improved economic activity and consumer welfare, these consumer advocates want a piece of the action too. As Professor Lee Hollar has stated on the over-zealousness of some commentators- The buzzword du jour is “innovation,” which will be “chilled” by just about anything done."
These new consumer advocates may well find badgering successful commercial entities as its own reward.
But hyping up mole-hills, created by IPRs or dominant firms like Microsoft, as injurous to society would do substantial harm. For one, government officials would be invited to impose regulations where no harm has occurred. Second, innovators may be vilified after risking investments and face undue consumer or government scrutiny. And while many purported consumer advocates claim to be free market libertarians, one must ask whether they see themselves as replacements for the state. Market regulation, at the least, has some basis in democratic systems of political economy.
posted by Noel Le @ 11:58 AM | General
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