Wu even suggests that we’ve turned a corner by curbing Big Tech’s dominance. “Ten years ago or anytime, they were able to take over potential competitors or make deals to shut out other companies,” he says. “It’s a much more challenging environment to do that kind of thing, and in some ways they’ve changed their behavior. And if they change their behavior, it’s harder to stay as entrenched as they were.”
Not everything has been smooth sailing in terms of Wu’s technology policy. For reasons I cannot understand, we currently do not have a US Chief Technology Officer; instead, we have three deputy CTOs. And while the Biden administration made a bold move by nominating Gigi Sohn, a righteous enemy of the Powers That Be, to the Federal Communications Commission, it hasn’t been aggressive enough to either put the nomination to the vote or vote for someone else. find. As a result, nearly halfway through Biden’s term, Democrats still do not have an FCC majority.
Still, it’s clear that the Biden administration has drastically changed the antitrust atmosphere, as Wu had argued before moving to DC. The question now is whether this momentum can survive the government. (Microsoft, after losing its 1999 lawsuit under Clinton’s DOJ, later won an out-of-court settlement from the incoming Bush Justice Department.) Also, the recent Supreme Court ruling that limited enforcement by the EPA could mean the government measures against monopolistic companies. Wu admits that’s a concern. “We know we’re dealing with a somewhat challenging legal environment,” he says. “We have to be very careful with the rules; we need to make sure they are well rounded. But the good news is that in many of these cases we are simply relying on the authority that has been there for a long time.” He also notes that the government is in favor of proposed antitrust legislation. (But as far as I can tell, not to the point where it’s cracking congressional heads to get it done.)
At the end of our conversation, Wu shared what it was like to work from the White House on antitrust actions. “It was a treat, a chance to try and put into practice things I’ve been thinking about or writing about for nearly twenty years,” he says. “In that sense, it’s been kind of an experience of a lifetime.” After that recap, it wasn’t too surprising that, shortly after we met, Bloomberg reported that Wu would return to private life “in the coming months.” Wu quick tweeted that the rumors of his departure were “greatly exaggerated”. In government, no one has a monopoly on non-denial.
time travel
The last time the US government took a big hit on tech antitrust was when it sued Microsoft. The government won its case – Bill Gates and the company competed illegally – but in a November 1999 News week column, I wondered if the judge’s plan to split the company made sense.
Just as Microsoft appears to be denying its past, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson appears to be denying its future. True, the judge in the Microsoft antitrust case in its 207-page “Findings of Fact” convincingly confirms the government’s main allegation that the company has overstepped its limits by forcibly enlisting its allies to defend its territory. (Microsoft insists its conduct was exemplary.) But not all court rulings actually match. Part of it is a guess as to how the computer market will develop in the coming years. And part of it, despite appeals court warnings against software design court rulings, is Judge Jackson’s surprisingly confident views about what features do and don’t belong in an operating system (OS).
