Google doesn’t act like a monopolist and shares none of the characteristics sheltering classic monopolists from competition. Its astounding success in Internet search is universally regarded as a consequence of better design, superior code, better products and plain old hard work. Like Lewis Carroll’s other queen, the Queen of Hearts, Google really has no power at all.
The brief on behalf of the Consumer Federation of America to the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of whether the so-called Red Lion doctrine of First Amendment regulation of broadcasters should be re-examined.
More from the silly lawsuit department. A federal court is being asked to grant constitutional rights to five killer whales that perform at marine parks — an unprecedented and perhaps quixotic legal action that is nonetheless likely to stoke an ongoing, intense debate at America’s law schools over expansion of animal rights.”
Although the AT&T/T-Mobile deal has both horizontal and vertical elements, most media and analyst discussion to date has focused on direct competition for wireless subscribers, the classic horizontal concentration question. Regardless of the result there, observers can expect behavioral injunctions, whether by DOJ consent decree or FCC “conditions” to approval, addressing the deal’s vertical factors.
This is a presentation I made in June 2011 at the 140 Characters Conference in New York focusing on copyright law and content ownership in social media.
With reality television all the rage, viewers may wonder why there’s been no reality series about the inbred high-tech ecosystem of Silicon Valley. There should be, because the reality of how our technology bastion really competes today — namely by patent litigation and acquisitions — is astonishing.
The battle to beat Google’s Android mobile phone OS is quickly turning into a legal bonanza. But why are three horizontal competitors being allowed to collaborate and cooperate and join hands together, rather than competing against each other?
Whatever one thinks of Roger Clemens’ veracity (let alone possible steroid use), the idea that his criminal trial ends without a verdict because the prosecutors blatantly disregarded the court’s instructions by showing the jury inadmissible evidence is just astounding. Brings to mind former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo’s famous question from the 1920s — […]
It is rare that the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States actually write or speak about technology. But as connectivity and user-generated content become more ubiquitous and pervasive, sometimes the Court — despite its inherent judicial conservatism — just can’t avoid touching on issues related to the use, importance and legal status of modern communications technologies.
Sunday’s special ops killing in Pakistan of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden — mastermind, symbol and financial underwriter of the Al Qaeda network — produced real feelings of unity in our divided and atomistic culture, aided by social media.