Operations of Internet Platform Intermediaries

Abstract

This chapter identifies defects in the ways most governments currently respond to allegations of harm to consumers and competition from internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. Governments can refrain from regulating access and tolerate market concentration as the proper reward for ventures offering desirable content and carriage services. Alternatively, they can impose ex ante safeguards to remedy anticipated harms to competition and consumers such as market concentration, price discrimination, reduced consumer welfare and captured consumer surpluses. Between these poles, governments can rely on courts or an expert regulatory agency to evaluate complaints and offer calibrated ex post remedies. The chapter analyzes a recent Supreme Court case that endorses an analysis of both downstream and upstream market impacts. It recommends that courts and government agencies should address marketplace distortions by recalibrating existing tools to examine the competitive and consumer impacts on both sides of an intermediary’s platform.