In the ongoing debate over whether and how to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it is important to understand the law’s origins, meaning, and impact—because, for better or worse, it has shaped the modern Internet.

Overview of Section 230: What It Is, Why It Was Created, and What It Has Achieved

Focusing on mitigating speculative concerns about AI will limit its development and adoption. Policymakers should instead encourage innovation while crafting targeted solutions for specific problems if they occur.

Ten Ways the Precautionary Principle Undermines Progress in Artificial Intelligence

The European Commission has set out to ensure digital markets are “fair and contestable.” But in a paradigm shift for antitrust enforcement, its proposal would impose special regulations on a narrowly defined set of “gatekeepers.” Contrary to its intent, this will deter innovation—and hold back small and medium-sized firms—to the detriment of the economy.

The Digital Markets Act: European Precautionary Antitrust

Policymakers should seek to maximize the benefits of Internet openness while maintaining carefully designed guardrails that reduce the Internet’s most clearly harmful uses.

The Case for a Mostly Open Internet

The neo-Brandeisian case for more aggressive merger reviews assumes that market concentration is out of control and enforcement has been too lax. Neither is true. Antitrust regulators should recognize that mergers can contribute to innovation, productivity, and competition.

Reforming Merger Reviews  to Preserve Creative Destruction

For the last 40 years, antitrust policy has been guided by what is known as the consumer welfare standard, but some activists have advocated for going back to a time when government actively pushed back against the formation of large firms.

Scaling Innovation: Why We Should Preserve the Consumer Welfare Standard in Antitrust Policy

A recent Treasury report on labor market competition provided a misleading narrative about labor market concentration and its effect on workers. Labor market power is largely due to labor market frictions, not concentration. Firms are not profiting at the expense of workers.

Monopolies Are Not Taking a Fifth of Your Wages

What should we make of large corporations today? Of all that can be said about large corporations—statistics, anecdotes, trend lines, and historical comparisons—which are the facts that matter most, and how should policymakers respond? Join ITIF for a spirited debate moderated by CNN's Lydia DePillis between ITIF President Robert Atkinson and Columbia University Law Professor Tim Wu on the role and influence of big business in today’s economy and society.

Big Business: “Beautiful” or a “Curse”?

The ReDigi example proves reforms to the Copyright Act need to revisit whether the technology has changed enough to warrant rethinking the First Sale doctrine for digital goods.

Capitol Records v. ReDigi and Selling “Used” Digital Goods

While ITIF applauds the Commission for its efforts to evaluate the adequacy of California’s competition laws and consider possible changes, this comment highlights concerns with both the single-firm and concentration reports, and specifically regarding their respective legal and economic findings.

Comments for the California Law Review Commission Study of Antitrust Law Regarding Single-Firm Conduct and Concentration

Brief of the International Center for Law & Economics and ITIF as amici curiae in support of petitioners and setting aside the Commission’s Order. The digital discrimination rule the FCC issued in its order is inconsistent with the IIJA. It is so expansive as to claim regulatory authority over major political and economic questions, and it is arbitrary and capricious.

Amicus Brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the Case of Minnesota Telecom Alliance v. FCC

The Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Apple risks committing the sin of turning antitrust enforcement into de facto regulation by putting forward flawed theories of exclusionary conduct. Courts should ensure that American consumers remain able to enjoy the mobile Eden that Apple has created.

Forbidden Fruit: DOJ Bites Apple in the Walled Garden

America’s leadership in advanced-technology industries can never be taken for granted, as evidenced by its losses in telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, televisions, solar panels, and chemicals. Policymakers must recognize what went wrong in those cases to avoid a similar industrial decline in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Not Again: Why the United States Can’t Afford to Lose Its Biopharma Industry

The FTC has granted itself the power to bring antitrust enforcement actions based on amorphous and politically motivated ideas of “fairness.” There should instead be a uniform standard for what constitutes fairness in both consumer protection and competition policy.

How to Restore Limiting Principles for “Unfair Methods of Competition” in Antitrust Law

Just as there was opposition to the corporate economy in the early 1900s, there is opposition to the platform economy today. But limiting “platformization” would have considerable long-lasting economic costs for the nation and consumers.

Platforms Are the New Organizational Paradigm

On February 21, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, a case that could significantly shape the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

 BPC writes, “by expressly shielding interactive computer service providers from liability for the content users publish on their platforms,” Section 230 “created a set of background principles” that have formed the internet as we know it.

Because the Court’s opinion in Gonzalez v. Google could determine whether Section 230 protections apply when platforms make targeted recommendations of other content providers’ content, this case could have significant implications for content moderation, free expression, children’s online safety, health information dissemination, and more. The case could also impact ongoing debates in Congress about Section 230 reform.

Ashley Johnson joins the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Technology Project for 

 on February 22, 2023, to offer her perspective on the oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, the broader Section 230 reform debate, different legislative proposals for altering Section 230, and the implications of potential changes to Section 230.

Webinar

Ashley Johnson offers her perspective on the oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, the broader Section 230 reform debate, different legislative proposals for altering Section 230, and the implications of potential changes to Section 230.

Supreme Court Argues Section 230: What’s Next for Congress?

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Overview of Section 230: What It Is, Why It Was Created, and What It Has Achieved

Ten Ways the Precautionary Principle Undermines Progress in Artificial Intelligence

The Digital Markets Act: European Precautionary Antitrust