Congress

If one considers the evidence, it is evident that U.S. antitrust enforcers have enabled the current “new normal” of online winner-take-all platforms: Alphabet-Google in e-information, Amazon in e-commerce, Facebook in e-social, Uber in e-transportation services, Airbnb in e-accommodation services, and a “unicorn” queue of online winner-take-all platform wannabes.

Summary of Conclusions

U.S. antitrust officials should be alarmed by the extreme early concentration of a relatively young twenty-year old, U.S. online company marketplace.

Five online winner-take-all platforms -- Google, Amazon, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb -- already command ~80% of U.S. online companies’ revenue share and market capitalization.

And they are collectively capturing 82% of U.S. online companies’ revenue growth share, meaning they are growing more dominant not less.

Those who think the U.S. Internet market is competitive, and not extremely concentrated, need to read on.

In a nutshell, for the first time, publicly available evidence shows that the cumulative effect of well-known “winner-take-all” platforms (WTAPs) Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft, is a “four-winners-take-all Internet sector.” Four different dominant platforms collectively command ~80% of overall Internet market share in revenues, new absolute annual revenues generated, market capitalization, and employees.

Imagine if the 94% of the economy that is offline-based, were as extremely concentrated as the 6% of the economy that is online-based/the Internet sector, per the Internet Association.

That would be an offline economy with basically one information company, one sharing company, one retailer, and one business software company, that collectively commanded 80% revenue share of the 94% of the economy that is offline based with ~4,000 publicly traded companies.

Reportedly the EU will rule Google has abused its search dominance this summer, putting the growth and profitability of the ~30% European part of Alphabet-Google’s revenue base at risk.

The logical next important question will be if this EU antitrust enforcement means U.S. antitrust enforcement eventually will follow, expanding Alphabet-Google’s growth and profitability risk, to the combined ~80% U.S. and European revenue base of Alphabet-Google.

Why do the answers of President Trump’s nominee for DOJ Antitrust Chief, Makan Delrahim, to the Senate Committee overseeing his confirmation process, merit close attention as it pertains to Alphabet-Google’s U.S. antitrust risk?

Mr. Delrahim’s is highly likely to be confirmed by the Senate to head the DOJ Antitrust Division, and it is likely to occur in June.

Thus, his written answers under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee represent the best accessible, most-recent, most-reliable, forward-looking evidence upon which to discern the general direction Mr. Delrahim and U.S. antitrust enforcement is likely to pursue on the Google antitrust matter.

If proponents of network neutrality, an Internet non-discrimination principle, truly care about preventing discrimination on the Internet, why do they turn a blind eye to the worst offender of gatekeeper discrimination on the Internet – Alphabet-Google?

Recently, the Internet Association, which Google co-founded and funds, criticized the Federal Communications Commission for its proposal on network neutrality and utility regulation of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Internet Association President Michael Beckerman stated: “ISPs should not be able to use their position as gatekeepers to prioritize their own content over others.”

Apparently, the net neutrality movement has a hypocritical double standard on gatekeeper discrimination. It has one for their chosen opponents – ISPs, and another for their allies and patrons like Google.

They maximally regulate competitive ISPs as monopolies engaged in anti-competitive discrimination, when they are not on both counts. They stay silent and do nothing when a real monopoly anti-competitively discriminates.

How can net neutrality proponents be so incensed about an imagined ISP net neutrality problem and so indifferent to a real anti-competitive and discriminatory gatekeeper problem on the Internet – Google?

They must ignore the facts.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 18, 2017, Contact:  Scott Cleland 703-217-2407

What’s Wrong with This Picture? Pressure Groups and their Netopolies-Funders: Google, Facebook and Amazon, Hypocritically Demand Utility Regulation of Competitive Broadband ISPs to Prevent Commercial Discrimination or Blocking When the Netopolies are the Actual De Facto Utilities that Discriminate and Block as a Key Part their Business Models  

WASHINGTON D.C. – The following may be attributed to Scott Cleland, Chairman of NetCompetition:  

“Title II broadband regulation proponents sacrifice their credibility when they claim competitive companies are monopolies that require the strongest possible utility regulation, while simultaneously claiming Internet monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, are competitive companies that should have no regulation at all.”

Let’s see what a winner-take-all, market failure looks like as it is happening before our eyes.

The Goobook digital ad cartel is continuing its outsized, abnormally-fast, revenue growth on top of the largest digital ad revenue bases by far. Consequently, their few remaining platform digital advertising competitors are weakening significantly per 1Q17 earnings reporting and other information.

This is how the relevant market players did in 1Q17.

Google (which is 90% digital advertising) grew revenues at a 22% annual rate, or an absolute revenue increase of +$17b to total $95b for the last year.

Facebook (which is basically all advertising) grew revenues at a 49% annual rate, or an absolute revenue increase of +$10b to total $30b for the last year.

What did the Senate confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee to head up the DOJ Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, tell us that’s relevant to the biggest pending global antitrust issue -- Google?

A lot.

Google is no longer politically protected from antitrust investigation in the U.S.

Let’s learn why.

It has gone from likely to clear that Makan Delrahim, will be the antitrust lead in handling the most consequential U.S and international antitrust matters, like Google, in the Trump Administration.

The hearing affirmed Mr. Delrahim is very well-known, highly-respected, and enjoys bipartisan support on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He received bipartisan letters of endorsement from 12 previous DOJ Antitrust Chiefs and all the Commissioners he served with on the Antitrust Modernization Commission.

In addition, as Deputy White House Counsel for nominations, who also shepherded Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, through the Senate confirmation process, he obviously enjoys the strongest trust, respect, and support from President Trump and Attorney General Sessions.

Tellingly, it is mid-May and we don’t have a nominee for FTC Chairperson.

Net neutrality proponents who summarily dismiss any potential for Congress to resolve net neutrality with a legislative compromise, might want to rethink that heroic assumption after closely reading the Pai-FCC’s Title II NPRM.

Apparently, Chairman Pai has figured out a way that could overturn the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet order, and in addition, practically neuter the going-forward precedential value of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ USTelecom v. FCC decision that upheld the legality of the 2015 FCC order.

Importantly, it is the continuation of the legal validation and legitimacy of the USTelecom v. FCC decision that gives net neutrality proponents their long-term hope that they could restore a Title II net neutrality regime in the U.S. with just a simple FCC majority vote in 2021 or 2025, just like they did in 2015.

The evidence is compelling that the DOJ will replace the FTC as the lead Sherman Act antitrust enforcer on the biggest Google antitrust matters during the Trump Administration.

A huge action forcing event for the Trump DOJ Antitrust Division is coming, most likely this June/July, when EU antitrust authorities most likely will conclude the first of three antitrust cases against Alphabet-Google, and officially rule Google is a 90+% search monopoly that has anticompetitively abused its monopoly position in search, and impose a traditional monopoly nondiscrimination principle remedy that Google treat its shopping comparison competitors as it treats itself.

While conventional wisdom assumes the FTC will continue as the Google antitrust lead, that is very unlikely to continue, because of two Google antitrust gamechangers, the replacement of President Obama with President Trump, and the EU’s coming official antitrust conclusion that Google is in fact a monopoly that acts anticompetitively in over 30% of the world.

Since so much flows from the baseline assumption of which U.S. entity will be the Google antitrust lead, the DOJ or FTC, it warrants closest examination.

Summary of six reasons DOJ will take the Google antitrust lead from FTC

(1) Institutionally, DOJ is the United States’ antitrust lawyer and the official liaison with other countries.

At best the notions of net neutrality and consumer privacy are somewhat in tension.

At worst, they are in opposition, and harm consumer privacy as happened when the Wheeler-FCC subordinated the goal of what’s best for consumer privacy to the conflicting and overriding goal of what was best for imposing maximal, Title II net neutrality.

Net neutrality and consumer privacy are in tension because they are very different concepts, priorities, and approaches for the handling of information online.

However, the original tension between the FCC’s first concept of net neutrality and consumer privacy was very limited because the Martin-FCC’s 2005 Internet Policy Statement on net neutrality was an extension of the Powell-FCC’s “Internet Freedoms” concept of net neutrality, and both approaches were consumer-first, i.e. very clearly centered around what consumers could expect from the Internet.

What thrust them into the more opposing concepts that they are today?

It was when net neutrality flipped from being primarily a consumer-centric principle to an edge-provider centric principle defined by Google, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix; and from the enforcement of a general broadband nondiscrimination principle, to the preemptive imposition of “the strongest possible,” specific, utility rate regulation framework – i.e. Title II of the 1934 Communications Act -- on a competitive industry that had done nothing wrong to warrant it.