Title

Antitrust Legislative Action Against Big Tech: Lessons from Arlen Specter’s Antitrust Campaign Against American Sports Leagues

Authors

Raju Parakkal, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-30-2022

Comments

Research funded in part by the Arlen Specter Center Research Fellowship.

Abstract

A growing concern in U.S. antitrust circles has been the set of challenges posed by Big Tech—large technology and internet firms such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA)—to market competition, consumer choice, and consumer welfare. In recent years, U.S. lawmakers proposed new legislation to address the threats posed by the quickly and vastly increasing dominance of GAFA. The ensuing stand-off between Congress and Big Tech draws a parallel with the historic antitrust tussles that Congress, and especially the late Senator Arlen Specter, had with organized baseball because of a unique exemption from antitrust challenges that baseball received from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922. Given that historical antitrust precedent, this paper examines and advances lessons that are obtained for antitrust action against Big Tech from the antitrust history with the sports industry.

Recommended Citation

Parakkal, Raju, "Antitrust Legislative Action Against Big Tech: Lessons from Arlen Specter’s Antitrust Campaign Against American Sports Leagues" (2022). Arlen Specter Center Research Fellowship. Paper 8.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/ascps_fellowship/8

Language

English