The U.S. Approach to Antitrust Policy in Technology Markets

This report illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. approach to antitrust policy by drawing lessons from three cases: United States v. AT&T, United States v. Microsoft, and United States v. Google. The cases against AT&T and Microsoft are historical cases, decided long ago; the Google case is pending.

The strength of the U.S. approach to antitrust policy is its focus on innovation and, more specifically, how innovation improves with more pluralism of supply. Pluralism refers to a greater number and variety of options brought to market to compete with the dominant firm. Relatedly, the U.S. approach to antitrust does not rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to analyzing or remedying an impediment to competition.

However, the U.S. approach has some weaknesses. Antitrust policy focuses on only issues that are targeted. Courts are inherently slow in resolving issues. Additionally, the U.S. approach relies on competition to reform behavior at the dominant firm, but that puts the court’s remedy at the mercy of the randomness of competitive events.

Overall, the U.S. approach to antitrust policy has worked well because U.S. technology markets are highly pluralistic, which has been true over many years and for many new technologies.