The EU Commission fines a Big Tech company €4.34 billion for illegal practices in distribution agreements for its mobile operating system (Google Android)

The EU’s Google Android antitrust decision falls prey to the nirvana fallacy* Today the European Commission launched its latest salvo against Google, issuing a decision in its three-year antitrust investigation into the company’s agreements for distribution of the Android mobile operating system. The massive fine levied by the Commission will dominate the headlines, but the underlying legal theory and proposed remedies are just as notable — and just as problematic. The nirvana fallacy It is sometimes said that the most important question in all of economics is “compared to what?” UCLA economist Harold Demsetz — one of the most important regulatory economists of the past century — coined the term “nirvana fallacy” to critique would-be regulators’ tendency to compare messy, real-world

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  • International Center for Law & Economics (Portland)

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Geoffrey Manne, The EU Commission fines a Big Tech company €4.34 billion for illegal practices in distribution agreements for its mobile operating system (Google Android), 18 July 2018, e-Competitions Commitment Decisions, Art. N° 88709

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