KGI’s work on competition regulation and enforcement in digital markets synthesizes leading research, bridging independent research with policymaking across various jurisdictions. We examine novel regulatory and enforcement tools and strategies, with a focus on understanding which approaches effectively promote competition.
Hardly a day goes by without competition regulation or enforcement involving tech companies appearing in news headlines around the world. From app stores and browsers to social networking, advertising, and AI-powered consumer services, dominant platforms shape how billions of people around the world access information.
KGI works to synthesize leading research on digital markets competition, bridging independent research with policymaking across various jurisdictions.
KGI’s marquee annual gathering, the Digital Competition Conference, brings together researchers, policymakers, regulators, litigators, and industry leaders for evidence-based dialogue on the most pressing competition issues in technology markets. Topics range from remedies in search and browsers to competition challenges in app stores, social networking, connected devices, and AI-powered consumer services. The conference serves as a unique venue in Washington where research and policy experts meet to unpack national, transatlantic, and global tech competition developments.
In collaboration with the Institute for Technology Law & Policy (Tech Institute), KGI is spearheading a research project at the intersection of law and economics to examine how competition authorities are addressing the challenges of regulating digital markets.
From the United States to the European Union to other jurisdictions, competition policy has a long list of challenges when attempting to change digital market realities. This has led to competition authorities developing novel strategies and tools for enforcement, including the enactment of stricter legal obligations, extensive market studies, establishing specialized internal units, and hiring staff with expertise in non-traditional fields for competition authorities. Using legal research alongside economic analysis, this project aims to map these different approaches and assess their impact on competition dynamics in the digital economy.
Organized by the Knight-Georgetown Institute (KGI) for Georgetown’s Tech & Society Week 2026, this panel will examine the relationship between algorithmic feed design and social and political polarization.
In-person and Livestreamed
Georgetown Capitol Campus
(500 1st St NW Washington, D.C. 20001)
10:00am ET
View this event
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The UK’s competition regulator has built solid evidence of Google’s market power in search, but its proposed interventions are not poised to address it. In recently filed comments, KGI explains that without confronting Google’s control over default distribution and sharpening its publisher and user choice rules, the Competition and Markets Authority’s proposed conduct requirements risk preserving the very market power they are meant to constrain.
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TikTok’s and Meta’s 2025 DSA risk assessments describe a range of risks and a multitude of mitigations addressing risks to minors: screentime management, parental controls, privacy-oriented design defaults, and restrictions on notifications. However, the risk assessments provide very little information about the level of risks and the effectiveness of chosen mitigations. Internal company documents released in US litigation, on the other hand, tell a different story.
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Across the EU and US, two influential digital governance regimes are producing new evidence about how large social media companies assess and respond to potential risks on their platforms. KGI’s latest report compares Meta and TikTok’s EU risk assessments with internal documents emerging from US litigation, revealing significant gaps between public claims about risk mitigation and evidence of how these risks are actually addressed.
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Governments around the world are adopting online age assurance requirements of different kinds, reshaping how digital services are accessed by adults and youth. KGI’s latest report provides a technical assessment of how age assurance systems work in practice and examines their accuracy, circumvention resistance, availability, and privacy implications.
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Algorithms determine what we read, watch, and encounter online, and, increasingly, they also influence our offline lives. Yet algorithms are often built to maximize short-term engagement and capture attention, rather than to deliver long-term value to users. KGI’s new commentary takes a deep dive into the evolving landscape of recommender system design, highlighting six innovative trends that show it is possible to design better feeds that put people first.
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Model legislation published by the Knight-Georgetown Institute provides a pathway for lawmakers who want to encourage better algorithmic feeds that put users’ interests front and center.
