Overview of Competition Law

In this chapter, we have attempted to summarize the issues involved in facilitating the distribution of data, how large platform operators conduct their economic activities in the marketplace, and how they are actually regulated and dealt with. In particular, we briefly examined the actual antitrust litigation in the U.S. and summarized the issues. The U.S. DOJ’s lawsuits against Google are, first, to prevent Google from monopolizing (intentionally creating and maintaining monopoly power) general search services, second, to prevent Google from monopolizing search advertising, and third, to prevent Google from monopolizing general search text advertising. The U.S. FTC’s actions against Facebook are, first, to prevent Facebook from neutralizing an important independent competitor in personal social networking services through its acquisition and continued dominance of Instagram; second, to prevent Facebook from neutralizing a significant competitive threat to Facebook’s monopoly in personal social networking through its acquisition and continued control of Whatsapp;. third, to prevent Facebook from limiting the competitive threat to Facebook’s monopoly in personal social networking by imposing anti-competitive conditions on access to the API platform available to Facebook app developers. Against these we can argue from five perspectives. First, we emphasize the delineation of the relevant market, which is also the first entry point in the competition analysis. Second, the existence of monopoly power requires an analysis of barriers to entry and the transition of dominant firms. Third, the analysis of the act of forming, maintaining, or strengthening market dominance is at the core of the anti-competitive determination. The criterion for this determination is whether the conduct contributes to the expansion of demand in the market as a whole beyond the company’s own sales, or whether it merely deprives other companies of sales. Fourth, it is necessary to consider whether the conduct has caused substantial harm to consumers. Fifth, it is necessary to consider the appropriateness of antitrust action, resolution of the problem, and remedy. Besides these points, it is necessary to consider communication between competitors for joint actions.