On Thursday, September 26 – Friday, September 27, 2024, the Program on Economics & Privacy hosted a workshop where authors presented a wide range of empirical research on privacy.
The full agenda for the program may be found here:
PEP’s mission is to inject sound economic analysis into policy discussions surrounding privacy, data security, and other competition and consumer protection issues facing the digital economy. We pursue this mission through research, education, and hosting public policy programs that bring together academics, thought leaders, and government officials for vibrant and balanced discussions.
This one-hour talk examined the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) complaint against Apple, which alleges that Apple has designed and structured its iPhone platform in a manner that violates Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Join us as Professor James Cooper of George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, Professor Erika Douglas of Temple University Beasley School of Law, Professor Thom Lambert of the University of Missouri School of Law, and moderator Professor John Yun of George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School discuss the scope of a platform’s duty to deal, the relevance of privacy considerations in antitrust matters, and the applicability of the seminal Microsoft case in determining the likely outcome.
Panelists
James C. Cooper Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
James C. Cooper brings over a decade of public and private sector experience to his research and teaching. Prior to joining the faculty at Scalia Law, he served as Deputy and Acting Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, Advisor to the Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic, and as an associate in the antitrust group of Crowell & Moring, LLP.
Erika M. Douglas Associate Professor of Law Temple University Beasley School of Law
Erika M. Douglas is an Associate Professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of antitrust, data privacy, and intellectual property law, with particular emphasis on the application of legal theory to new technology. Professor Douglas teaches New Technology Regulation, Patents, and Contracts.
Thom Lambert Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance and Professor of Law
University of Missouri School of Law
Professor Lambert’s scholarship focuses on antitrust, corporate and regulatory matters. He is the author of How to Regulate: A Guide for Policymakers (Cambridge Univ. Press 2017) and co-author of Antitrust Law: Interpretation and Implementation 95th ed., Foundation Press, 2013). He has also authored or co-authored numerous book chapters and more than 20 journal articles in publications such as the Antitrust Bulletin, the Boston College Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, the Texas Law Review and the Yale Journal on Regulation. He blogs regularly at Truth on the Market, a site focused on academic commentary on antitrust, business and economic legal issues.
John M. Yun, Moderator Associate Professor of Law George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
John M. Yun is an Associate Professor of Law and an economist who specializes in research at the nexus of antitrust, intellectual property rights, data, and privacy. More broadly, he conducts scholarship in the fields of law & economics, industrial organization, and law & technology— especially as it relates to network effects, multisided platforms, and digital markets. He regularly teaches courses in antitrust, law & economics, and intellectual property.
The Program on Economics & Privacy (PEP), part of the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, has accepted proposals for large-scale empirical research on various facets of the economics of privacy.
Venue: George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
The Program on Economics & Privacy (PEP) at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School held a Research Roundtable on Competition and Consumer Protection Issues Surrounding Information Flows.
The Program on Economics & Privacy (PEP) at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School invites applications for its January, 2022 Research Roundtable on “The Data-Competition Interface.” We seek authors to develop and present original work that focuses on the intersection between competition policy and other policy goals surrounding the digital economy. Issues of interest include, but are not limited to: Continue reading “Call for Papers: Research Roundtable on “The Data-Competition Interface””
The Program on Economics & Privacy held its Ninth Annual Symposium on the Law & Economics of Privacy & Data Security in-person at the Antonin Scalia Law School on June 10, 2021. The symposium included a fireside chat with FTC Commissioner, Noah Phillips, and Jon Fasman, the U.S. Digital Editor for The Economist, who discussed his new book We See It All: Liberty and Justice in the Age of Perpetual Surveillance. The Symposium featured panels on surveillance capitalism, the interplay between privacy and competition, and the future of online advertising.
Content moderation decisions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election—including the removal of President Trump from Twitter and Facebook—have brought into sharp relief the power that social media platforms wield in shaping the national discourse. These social media platforms have come under increasing fire from both the left and the right and have been accused of unfairly censoring conservative viewpoints and failing to adequately curb misinformation and harmful content. Indeed, there seems to be a bipartisan consensus to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides companies broad protection from suits involving both the content third parties post on their platforms and “good faith” content moderation decisions. Further, many have pointed to lack of competition as the culprit, suggesting antitrust or other economic regulation as a remedy for perceived problems with platforms’ content moderation decisions. At the same time, any reform proposal will have to be squared with these platforms’ First Amendment rights.
Join us for a vibrant discussion of these issues with a panel of distinguished academics:
Jane Bambauer, Professor of Law, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Genevieve Lakier, Assistant Professor of Law, Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar, The University of Chicago Law School
Adam White, Assistant Professor and Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Moderator: James C. Cooper, Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Law & Economics Center, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School
Balancing Privacy and Public Health in the COVID-19 Era
The desire to resume “normal life” has brought issues surrounding privacy into sharp relief. Most experts agree that some form of contact tracing will be necessary in order to safely reopen the economy in the absence of a vaccine. Several countries have turned to some form of geolocation tracking from smart phones to identify interactions with potentially infected individuals. In the US, major tech companies have been working on bluetooth based solutions. Widespread adoption of these tracking tools will be necessary to contain the spread of the coronavirus, but legitimate privacy concerns surrounding these solutions may discourage people from opting into such a system, causing doubts about their efficacy.
On Thursday, May 14 our panel of law and public health experts offered some guidance to policymakers working through these complex and pertinent issues.
Featuring:
Jane Bambauer, Professor of Law, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Woodrow Hartzog, Professor of Law and Computer Science, Northeastern University School of Law
Daniel Barth-Jones, Assistant Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Moderator: James Cooper, Professor of Law, George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy
Click here to listen to the full recording of the event.
Thom Lambert
