by Kevin Coates | Jun 26, 2011 | Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets, Reviews
Dr Chris Marsden has provided a great endorsement of my book: Kevin Coates has set a new standard for competition law texts with this excellent contribution, which should be read by all US and European competition, telecoms and Internet lawyers and economists. The insightful commentary is authoritative and decisive on current controversies, and the breadth of subject matter sets this apart: from Google mergers and privacy issues, to interconnection and network neutrality, to exhaustive examination of the Microsoft cases set against Intel, to 3G standards and FRAND, to software, interoperability and copyright. The most advanced competition cases are almost invariably in technology markets, and this is an indispensable guide, with an excellent blog http://technologyandregulation.com/ covering updates. Dr Chris Marsden is Director of EXCCEL (Essex Centre for Comparative and European Law) and Senior Lecturer at Essex University School of Law Chris is author of numerous books and articles on law and technology issues, including “Net neutrality: Towards a Co-Regulatory Solution” (2010, Bloomsbury), “Internet Co-regulation: European Law, Regulatory Governance and Legitimacy in Cyberspace” (2011, Cambridge), and the forthcoming “Regulating Code” (2012, MIT Press with Dr Ian...
by Kevin Coates | Jun 26, 2011 | Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets, Reviews
Professor Eleanor Fox of NYU has provided an endorsement of my book. The endorsement will filter through to the online bookshops in time: This is an excellent treatise on EU and US competition law, intellectual property law, and regulation as applied to technology, information, communication networks and media. Through the technology lens, the book engages with the cutting edge of the law and thus is able to explain the applicable legal principles, and the critical US/EU divergences, clearly and insightfully. The book promises to be invaluable to practitioners, enforcers and students alike. Professor Eleanor M. Fox, Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation, New York University School of...
by Kevin Coates | Jun 26, 2011 | Antitrust, Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets, Featured, Telecoms
A margin squeeze occurs if the difference between the retail prices charged by a dominant company and the wholesale prices it charges its competitors for comparable products is negative, or insufficient to cover the costs to the dominant company of providing its own retail products on the downstream market. These issues are discussed in Chapter Four of Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets. Since the book went to press, the Court of Justice has given a preliminary ruling in the TeliaSonera case (Case C-52/09, Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 17 February 2011, Konkurrensverket v TeliaSonera Sverige AB, ECR reports 2011 Page 00000), and the European Commission has issued a prohibition decision against Telekomunikacja Polska, the Polish telecoms operator, fining it € 127 million for a margin squeeze. (Press release here.) Case C-52/09 TeliaSonera TeliaSonera is the Swedish fixed telephone network operator, owning the local telecoms infrastructure – the local loop. TeliaSonera offered its retail competitors unbundled access to the local loop in line with its obligations under Regulation (EC) No 2887/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on unbundled access to the local loop (OJ 2000 L 336, p. 4). It also offered an ADSL product intended for wholesale users, enabling those operators to supply retail broadband services to end users, but it did so voluntarily, without regulatory obligation. At the same time, TeliaSonera offered retail broadband connection services directly to end users, in competition with the companies to whom it supplied wholesale services. Further to national court proceedings alleging a margin squeeze, the court referred the following questions to...
by Kevin Coates | Apr 23, 2011 | Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets
Here’s the latest draft of the publicity material for my comparative law book on EU and US Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets. • The first practitioner work to give full comparative examination to EU and US competition law and regulation within the information, communication and media markets • Unique analysis of the relationship between EU/US competition law, intellectual property, telecoms regulation and data protection • With dedicated chapters on pricing, product design, standards and interoperability, communications networks and data protection. • Outlook sections which look at possible future developments and law reform • Written by an official in the Directorate General for Competition in the European Commission with prior in-house experience at a global communications firm Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets takes a practical, integrated approach to EU and US competition law and regulation in the technology sector – including major trans-Atlantic cases such as Microsoft, Google/Doubleclick, and Intel, and important comparative issues such as refusal to supply (Microsoft, Trinko), margin squeeze (Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, EU Guidance Paper, Linkline), communications regulation and data protection. The book’s unique perspective focuses on the information, communication and media markets, that form the ‘new economy’. It provides a coherent analysis of these various markets by considering the regulatory context, and by addressing the issues, and ensuing legal problems, that are common to them. These include; high fixed costs, the importance of intellectual property and standards, the impact of interoperability, and the prevalence of network effects. This book is indispensable for competition lawyers in private practice or in-house at technology companies, and for practitioners specialised in these sectors. The...
by Kevin Coates | Apr 23, 2011 | Apple, Google
An interesting article that covers a lot of the issues about the latest iPhone (and now probably all smartphones) data protection controversy. The current debate raises several different issues: – is this legal under EU data protection rules? It looks as though several national DPOs are going to be looking at this; – do users who have agreed to the terms of service really know what it is they are agreeing to? Or is this a case of users accepting the default settings without really understanding – or perhaps caring? – possibly also the importance of network effects. It’s not clear so far if this location data is being kept by the operating system companies – Apple, Google, RIM etc – to improve their services, or is being passed on to network operators to help improve their networks. If the former, then we have another network effect – the more users a company has that uses your location services, then the more location feedback a company will receive, and the more it can improve the location services. Not a competition law problem, but potentially relevant to looking at questions of market power and barriers to entry. This article titled “iPhones and Android phones building vast databases for Google and Apple” was written by Charles Arthur, for The Guardian on Friday 22nd April 2011 16.20 UTC Apple and Google are using smartphones running their software to build gigantic databases for location-based services, according to new research following the Guardian’s revelations that iPhones and devices running Android collect location data about owners’ movements. iPhones and Android smartphones swap data – which...
by Kevin Coates | Apr 11, 2011 | Antitrust, Google
This article titled “Google wins approval for ITA travel search deal – but antitrust case looms” was written by Jemima Kiss, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 11th April 2011 12.36 UTC Google has been given approval for its takeover of travel search and recommendation service ITA by the US Justice Department, albeit with some fairly heavy strings attached that are designed to prevent the search giant taking advantage of its market position – and lining up a likely broader antitrust investigation. Nine months after Google announced its intended acquisition of ITA, the settlement reached with the Justice Department requires Google to maintain ITA’s software licence with rival flight search sites for five years, as well as its research and development funding. Google will also need to stablish internal firewalls to protect information about ITA’s customers and the Justice Department will be monitoring all of these requirements. Photo by HarshLight on Flickr. Some rights reserved Rival travel search firms – including Expedia, TripAdvisor and Kayak (which all some of whom use ITA’s software) – had lobbied hard in opposition to the 0m takeover. A coalition that also included consolidated airfare service Sabre Holdings and called itself Fairsearch.org seemed satisfied with the restrictions placed on Google, saying in a statement that the Justice Department’s settlement would ensure “that consumers will continue to benefit from vibrant competition and innovation in travel search”. Google had initially said it did not intend to launch a ticket sales service, though the Justice Department’s restrictions would not stop that happening. In an official blog post, Google’s senior vice president of commerce and local, Jeff Huber, said that...