Research & Commentary

The appeals of the United States v. Google search antitrust case turn in part on whether the remedies ordered address Google’s illegal monopoly in search – or whether, by declining to ban the payments Google makes for search defaults, the District Court has left the conduct at the heart of the case largely intact. In Pay for Half, KGI’s Alissa Cooper joins leading economists and competition experts in showing how the court can reasonably cap those payments rather than ban them, opening at least half of the market to rivals, including emerging AI-powered entrants, while preserving revenue for distribution partners.

As the European Commission advances efforts under the Digital Markets Act to require Google to share its search data with competitors, lessons from historic antitrust remedies underscore how data access could be transformational in the AI-powered search market. While the Commission’s proposals represent a novel and comprehensive approach, key improvements to data scope and sharing frequency, privacy protections, and dispute resolution are needed. US courts and enforcers charged with implementing similar provisions should take note.

As lawsuits involving AI, social media, privacy, competition, and platform accountability expand worldwide, courts are emerging as central actors shaping technology governance. A new tech litigation tracker developed by the Knight-Georgetown Institute, Tech Justice Law, and Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology program centralizes and tracks technology-related litigation and regulatory actions across jurisdictions and issue areas.

This year’s Digital Competition Conference brought together researchers, policymakers, businesses, litigators, and civil society experts from over 37 countries to explore the latest lessons, challenges, and opportunities in regulating and enforcing competition in digital markets.

As governments around the world move to require age assurance online, attention is growing around whether and how these mechanisms can be implemented accurately and effectively. Recently proposed rules from the New York Office of the Attorney General represent the most significant effort to date by a US public authority to operationalize an age assurance mandate. KGI’s comments on the proposed rules recommend improvements to make them more technically sound and to better account for privacy and service availability.