← The Monopoly Report
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- [00:01]
Marketecture Podcast Host
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- [00:42]
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- [01:10]
Alan Chappelle
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- [01:22]
Monopoly Report Host
Welcome to the Monopoly Report the Monopoly Report is dedicated to chronicling and analyzing the impact of antitrust and other regulations on the global advertising economy. Economy. I'm Alan Chappelle. I'm a privacy and regulatory attorney and have worked with hundreds of digital media and ad tech companies over the years. I also publish a monthly syndicated regulatory outlook for digital media worldwide called the Chappelle Report. You can find a link to a sample copy of the Chappelle Regulatory Outlook Report in the show Notes this week. My guest is Commissioner Mark Meador of the Federal Trade Commission. Commissioner Meddor most recently worked in private practice and and as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy for Senator Mike Lee. During the Trump administration. Medor worked as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and he began his career as an attorney in the FTC's Bureau of Competition. Medor earned his law degree at the University of Houston Law center and his undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago. It's absolutely an honor to be able to discuss these important issues with the sitting FTC commissioner, and I'm really interested to discuss some of the statements that the Commissioner has made regarding the future of conservative antitrust, as those statements struck me as a repudiation of the Robert Bork, Chicago School of Antitrust that's been so dominant over these past 50 years. So let's get to it.
- [02:57]
Alan Chappelle
Commissioner Meddor, thanks for coming on the pod.
- [03:00]
Monopoly Report Host
How are you, sir?
- [03:01]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Doing well. Thanks so much for having me.
- [03:03]
Alan Chappelle
I take it you're down in D.C. right now.
- [03:05]
Commissioner Mark Meador
I am. I am in the office in D.C. enjoying the nice cold weather.
- [03:09]
Monopoly Report Host
Us, too.
- [03:10]
Alan Chappelle
Might be one of those rare times where New York is actually just a.
- [03:14]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Little colder than D.C. as a native of Chicagoan, I will take it. I am always hoping for colder weather than we usually get. So this is nice.
- [03:22]
Alan Chappelle
Well, okay. So we're going to have our first diversion here. Chicago, probably one of my favorite towns ever. Except when you want to go see a basketball game in February and the hotel is right across the street from the Forum or Civic center or whatever, and you decide to leave your coat in the hotel because it would be easier. Trust me, sir, it was not easier.
- [03:42]
Monopoly Report Host
No.
- [03:42]
Commissioner Mark Meador
That's a bad call.
- [03:44]
Alan Chappelle
Well, with your permission, I would love to start with a few questions about the ofTC priorities for 2026. Can we start with privacy and consumer protection, particularly as it pertains to digital media? Because that's really the core root of my audience. So, broadly speaking, what are you and your colleagues hoping to accomplish and what.
- [04:03]
Monopoly Report Host
Are your areas of focus?
- [04:04]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Sure. So I know you asked about privacy. I'm going to zoom out a little further. Even I view the FTC's mission as just one part of this administration's overall larger mission, essentially to make life easier for the average American citizen. So for us, that means addressing our affordability crisis by ensuring competitive markets and protecting consumers from frauds and scams. So your privacy kids online, that's a huge component of it. I like to talk about how we should be focusing on kitchen table issues, the things that affect your typical household, family, individual. And the reality is that today, big tech issues, online issues, kids safety, those are kitchen table issues. Those are the things that families and individuals do worry about on a daily basis. And so I think they're. They're top of mind for us and certainly at the forefront of what we're working on.
- [04:53]
Alan Chappelle
That makes sense. And boy, I'll tell you, for my friends that I grew up with and those who are, many of which are not necessarily in. I'm going to use air quotes here in tech, those are the exact issues that are. That are keeping them up at night.
- [05:05]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Yep. As, I mean, I have seven kids of my own, and I could tell you my wife and I spent a lot of time Negotiating over how much time can you spend on the tablet, what website sites can you visit, you know, what apps can you use. And it's a frequent topic of conversation and you know, you hear a lot about, especially I think from the tech industry saying the government shouldn't supplant parents. And I 100% agree with that. But parents are also asking for help. And I know that, being one myself, that it's a lot to manage. You know, you, we're dealing with the things that every family is dealing with. You've got a budget to worry about, you're trying to put food on the table, shuffle your kids to activities, manage a household. And in the middle of all that, you have kids that want to be online, want to be active, you're doing a lot of things online. And when you try to address it, you often find yourself staring in the face of, you know, trillion dollar companies that have just immense amounts of power. And that's a lot to ask of, you know, one family, one parent, two parents. And so I think that's part of our role is to step in, to be their advocates, to help parents and to help just all consumers. Right. In that struggle to maintain their privacy and, and have sort of a fair and equitable balance in their interactions in the marketplace.
- [06:11]
Monopoly Report Host
Yeah.
- [06:11]
Alan Chappelle
And I think that there were at times different FTCs who were focused more on what we'll call ethereal harms, which just from the perspective of enforcement, I would imagine is much, much more difficult to really define and nail down and enforce against. But it sounds like, and I'm, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like your office right now is focused more on, you know, actual tangible harms and there's certainly no shortage of those.
- [06:34]
Commissioner Mark Meador
That's exactly right. And you know, we're not looking to stretch the bounds of the law. I think the law that we have on the books covers a lot of practical, everyday harms that are abundant, as you point out, and we have our hands busy trying to address those. And I think that should be our top priority.
- [06:50]
Alan Chappelle
I'm going to come back to the broader consumer protection stuff in a minute, but first I would love just to get a high level snapshot of your view on antitrust. So what do you see are the areas of focus around antitrust for the ftc? Sure.
- [07:01]
Commissioner Mark Meador
So I mean, this has been a topic of a frequent discussion for probably the last eight to 10 years. I view our job there's been zoom out, like you said. I think we've had Some choppy waters in the debates around antitrust policy. There has been an emerging, if now, I think, fairly settled, bipartisan consensus that we had some under enforcement on a bipartisan basis for several decades, meaning that administrations from both parties had been under enforcing the antitrust laws, not stopping mergers that they should have, not challenging monopolies that they should have. And the debate most recently has really been what to do about it. The last administration had a very clear approach. They tried to be very aggressive. And I think we're seeing a new approach emerge under this administration. Not denying the problem. I think we all agreed that there was a problem with some under enforcement, but taking a different approach as to how we should address it. And in our view, you know, it's not enough just to kind of have the right targets, right? It's not enough to want to do the right thing. You need to make sure that you're doing it in the right way, that you actually know how to accomplish these goals that we all share. You know, we all want to see competitive, free markets. Well, how do we go about that? Is it throwing sand into gears, using the process as a punishment, or is it doing the hard work of bringing cases and litigating to, you know, durable wins in court so that when you, when you do stop something bad, it's legitimate and it's going to last?
- [08:28]
Monopoly Report Host
A fair point.
- [08:29]
Alan Chappelle
And to that end, I read your remarks last May as they pertain to antitrust conservative future. You know, the idea that big government, similar to big government corporations, can be too big and too powerful, really a compelling, compelling, compelling case. But. But it also strikes me that it's pushing back on some of the notions of the Chicago school, which had really been a large part of antitrust thinking over the last 40 or 50 years. Am I thinking about this the right way?
- [08:58]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Yeah, you are. I think, latent. Underneath the Chicago school approach are a few assumptions, and those include that the threat from government is the only threat we need to worry about, that we should be more concerned about false positives and false negatives, meaning over enforcement is a bigger threat to the economy than under enforcement. And I think a lot of that was much broader than antitrust. I think in sort of the larger conservative movement, we were very successful at transforming the judiciary to take a more originalist approach to things, to be thoughtful in how they're applying the law. And along with that came this, I think, in general, healthy humility, that you don't want to overstretch, you don't want to go too far, you don't want to overburden parties appearing before you by enforcing the law in a manner that it wasn't intended. And in most areas of the law, that was a very salutary change in antitrust. There was definitely some. You go back to the mid 20th century, things were kind of crazy, right when we were blocking mergers because they would have a 5% market share. That's crazy. I don't even think the most aggressive progressive enforcers today would try to do that. Maybe some, but vast majority would not. And so there was some reining in that needs to happen. But then I think we took it a little too far. And that reticence of judges that in most instances is very healthy of not wanting to go too far, ended up in the antitrust context, ironically, of kind of leading to this anti textualist, unoriginalist approach where instead of enforcing the law as it was written, not going so far as to stop a merger because it has 5%, but also not pulling back so much that you let anything go, that balance was lost and we kind of overcorrected and got to a place where, you know, that that over enforcement was the biggest fear. And we're going to ignore even the text and history of the laws and dial it back much further, often for more of an ideological ground, you know, sort of a pro business mindset rather than something grounded in the statutory text.
- [11:02]
Alan Chappelle
So I'm not going to ask you to comment directly on any of the DOJ cases against Google. But I will note that there are certain economic realities in play that are providing headwinds to remedies in antitrust cases, particularly as they pertain to big tech. You know, how does an antitrust enforcer overcome those realities?
- [11:24]
Commissioner Mark Meador
My first observation on that is that this really highlights why we should want and really need to avoid a situation where we have an entrenched monopolist who can essentially say, oh great, you caught me, I violated the Sherman Act, I'm a monopolist. But if you try to do anything to fix it now, look how much pain I'm going to cause you, right? It's sort of this sort of economic hostage taking where we got them so late that now they're entrenched. In the merger context among antitrust lawyers, we call this unscrambling the egg, right? It's why we have a legal regime that allows the enforcers to challenge a merger before it's consummated. Because we all understand once two companies merge and integrate their operations and maybe shut down a factory here, open one, there all that sort of stuff, it's almost impossible to undo that and the harm has really been done. And then you get into a situation where any sort of remedy is really regulation.
- [12:14]
Monopoly Report Host
Right.
- [12:14]
Commissioner Mark Meador
And that's what we're trying to avoid in the first place as an antitrust enforcer when we can maintain a healthy competitive market, it obviates the need for regulation down the road. So I think the, the first lesson I take from this is this is why we need early and decisive intervention by antitrust enforcers to stop this kind of conduct before it becomes entrenched in the marketplace. Because we can find ourselves in a situation where we know we have a monopolist, we know they've been acting anti competitively and fixing that is really difficult at that point.
- [12:44]
Monopoly Report Host
Right.
- [12:44]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Then you almost necessitate some sort of regulatory intervention or government interference in the market to restructure things in a fair way. And I think it's safe to say, like nobody wants that, that's not the ideal outcome. And so the best thing we can do is look, we'll do the best we can with the cases we have now that are looking at sort of a longer time horizon, going backwards, but moving forward, we should take away the lesson that this is why we need to act clearly, decisively in the current moment to make sure we don't end up in this place again.
- [13:14]
Monopoly Report Host
Fair point.
- [13:15]
Alan Chappelle
So what policies or regulations do you advocate for to better protect children and teens online? Particularly, you know, regarding data collection, but addictive design features?
- [13:25]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Sure. So there are several laws in the books that we already enforce. The big one is Section five of the FTC act that deals with unfair and deceptive practices, which gives us a pretty wide latitude. We enforce COPPA and some other laws aimed at protecting children's privacy. The first thing I always say that we can do is enforce those laws, enforce the laws that we have. The other thing we can do, and this is something we did something recently, we have this thing called a 6B. So section 6B of the FTC act lets us conduct studies. It's a unique authority that we have. I think it's one of our best tools because it allows us to open these non law enforcement studies. We can actually get documents and testimony information from companies so that we can understand new markets, new technology, how these industries operate and then that informs future enforcement efforts. Right. So we aren't making mistakes and thinking there could be something that looks really bad from the outside. And then when we learn more about it, we say, okay, this is actually fine. It's not concerning, but here's maybe something else we should pay attention to. And we prepare reports that we provide to Congress so that then when they're legislating and they're trying to think of a regulatory fix to some problem, they have a better sense of what they're doing, where the traps are, and how they should approach this industry. So that's something I think is really important. We did that with. We launched a 6B study into chatbots with a focus on their interaction with children. And I think that's one of the best things we can do to make sure that, you know, we really know the lay of the land before we start going on investigations and bringing law enforcement actions.
- [14:54]
Alan Chappelle
And how do the 6Bs generally play out? Is it a use for enforcement? Is it a understand the market? Is it a provide additional data to Congress to implore them to take action in a certain area?
- [15:07]
Commissioner Mark Meador
So it's much more the latter. There are pretty strict guidelines about how the information we collect in the course of a 6B study can be used. It's not to be used for law enforcement purposes. It is to allow our lawyers and economists to gain a better understanding of the market. And so we collect that information, analyze it, and then we prepare study or reports. Right. And so the reports obviously can be shared among staff for those that didn't participate in the investigation to learn about that market. And then most importantly, we make them public so that legislators at both the federal and state level have access to that insight and it can inform their efforts going forward.
- [15:42]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah, And I'll just note that sometimes the results of those studies aren't even necessarily applicable in the country in which the study is crafted. So, for example, the UK has written some pretty detailed studies on the mobile, the mobile operating system marketplace and in a couple of other places. And I actually think that that education not only helped the UK regulators, but certainly helped the regulators in Germany and in Poland and France as they're sort.
- [16:09]
Monopoly Report Host
Of looking through the larger mobile operating system ecosystem.
- [16:12]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Yeah, I think it's fair to say that when we're conducting a study at ftc, we're certainly hoping that it is informative across the globe. You know, on both the consumer protection and the antitrust side, we're dealing with companies that do span the globe, that have business across almost every country. And it's incredibly important that we have consistency and uniformity in our enforcement actions so that we don't end up in a situation where one radical country is sort of setting the, you know, the lowest common denominator for everyone else. And so when we conduct these studies, I think that's a helpful tool that we can bring to bear to kind of have level set across the globe.
- [16:46]
Alan Chappelle
And with this specific 6B regarding chatbots, is that focused primarily on kids or are there other areas that the commission is looking into?
- [16:55]
Commissioner Mark Meador
So interaction with children, I think is really the driving force behind it. I think it will probably encompass a bit more than that. But kids interactions with chatbots has really been attracting a lot of the attention and concern. And I think when we're working through our analysis of how these products work, how these industries operate, that's where the most concern is. And so that's where we're going to put a lot of our focus to make sure we're understanding it correctly.
- [17:18]
Monopoly Report Host
Sure.
- [17:19]
Alan Chappelle
And this is going to be. Well, it is huge, but it's just going to get bigger and bigger with all this AI technology flying around right now. So how retrospective can one be as an FTC commissioner? So, like, how much do you look to learn from the wins and losses of previous FTCs? And I'm not necessarily talking about the Lina Khan era. We had John Leibowitz on a while ago, and he's an interesting one because a lot of the issues that are coming to roost today have their roots during his era, for better or worse.
- [17:50]
Commissioner Mark Meador
That's right. I think it's incredibly important to be looking to the past to figure out what you did right, what you did wrong. On the nitrust side, one of the things we talk about a lot are merger retrospectives.
- [18:01]
Marketecture Podcast Host
Right.
- [18:02]
Commissioner Mark Meador
So when the agency makes a decision not to challenge a merger, how did that end up playing out? Or if we bring a merger enforcement action and we lose in court and the court says no, it's fine, well, did it actually work out well in that industry, that sort of analysis can be extremely informative to help update our assumptions when we bring actions in the future to say, okay, we made X, Y and Z assumptions 15 years ago and we got it wrong. Or, you know, we said these things and the court disagreed and it turned out we were right. So how do we bring that to bear in the next case? To say, you, Honor, look, we've tried this before. Another court stopped us.
- [18:37]
Monopoly Report Host
We.
- [18:37]
Commissioner Mark Meador
But look what happened. You don't want to make that same mistake and here's an opportunity to prevent it.
- [18:42]
Alan Chappelle
Great. And we now have a 15 or 20 year history specific to the digital media tech space and all kinds of learnings there. And in fairness, some of them were things that nobody would have predicted. The market shook out exactly as it did. And we're hopeful that going forward we can figure out a way to make the marketplace more competitive. So with the rise of AI, companies are often making claims about their products. How is the FTC monitoring enforcing against deceptive claims or AI washing as the. As in the digital marketplace?
- [19:18]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Sure. I mean, the short answer is we're enforcing the law the exact same way in the AI space that we do in every other industry. And this is something where, you know, it's not actually unique to AI. There's no ex ante regulation going on. We're not targeting AI space in any way. But in the same way that we protect consumers across all sorts of different markets from false and misleading statements, we're doing the same thing. When companies are saying, hey, we've turbocharged our product with AI and you're getting all these benefits. If they're not getting benefits and they're not using AI, that's just plain old deception. And so we will act quickly to protect consumers in that case.
- [19:53]
Alan Chappelle
How are you viewing the role of section 230 immunity in the current digital ecosystem, particularly in light of some discussions around content moderation, child safety, platform accountability? So I know that you're not maybe directly involved in section 230, but it's such a linchpin to a lot of the issues that we're facing here.
- [20:12]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Sure. So it has been, I guess, tangential to what we do. You know, we've seen it come up here and there. Parties will raise that as a defense in the course of some investigation. It hasn't played a massive role. I don't want to get ahead of kind of, you know, what kind of arguments we might make against that in the future. But it's certainly on our radar as we're, you know, dealing with a lot more of these issues in the high tech space.
- [20:35]
Alan Chappelle
So your career has included stints at the Texas AG's office, the FTC, and DOJ as an antitrust lawyer, and time working with Senator Mike Lee, in addition to your work in private practice. So all of that experience has no doubt influenced your thinking as an FTC commissioner. So what I would love to know, is there anything from that past experience that impacts your approach in a way that might be less obvious to somebody?
- [21:01]
Commissioner Mark Meador
I mean, I think one thing that has come into play that's very helpful in my current role is appreciation, on the one hand, of knowing the law, having applied the law and the government and private practice, but also the policy side as well, and understanding sort of the Political valence that comes with any enforcement action. And it's not about, you know, politicizing enforcement or taking actions for political reasons, but it's about being able to explain why what we do on a daily basis matters to the average person. That's been really helpful. And I think, you know, what I mentioned before too, having an appreciation for the fact that wanting to accomplish the right things is not enough, that you have to actually know how to do them and do them in a principled way. Because it's not helpful if you just use sheer force to get what might be considered a win and then the next administration comes in and can wash it all away. You know, you want to actually, you know, get something that's enshrined in law with a court precedent that has legitimacy and that's going to stand the test of time.
- [22:01]
Alan Chappelle
Yeah. And in order to do that, I would imagine they need to be real principled objections.
- [22:06]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Right.
- [22:06]
Alan Chappelle
You know, there's this, it's very, I don't want to say easy, but it's. There's been history of FTC commissioners maybe using the bully pulpit. Sometimes that's a really effective tool. Sometimes it's. It has a way of backfiring. Yeah.
- [22:20]
Commissioner Mark Meador
And, you know, I think that's one of the important roles that I have to play as a non chair commissioner is that sort of bully pulpit role. I can do podcasts like this, I can give speeches and make policy arguments, but the core of what I do is, is oversee enforcement actions within the agency. And when we're doing those. Right, like the sort of the rhetoric you might use in a speech or on the Hill, something like that, that's one thing. But when we bring a lawsuit, you're talking about real people's businesses, you're trying to protect consumers from real harm. You want to make sure that you're doing it in a legitimate and principled way and not just in an arbitrary fashion.
- [22:57]
Alan Chappelle
So how do you approach the issue of remedies and really switching back to antitrust here? You know, but how do you approach the issue of remedies creating unintended consequences, like the problem of maybe king making a different entity as a result of a divestiture request or enabling the monopolist to maybe run everyone around in circles for several years via the use of technical committees?
- [23:19]
Commissioner Mark Meador
There's a few things we have to deal with that. One of them is, you know, within the ftc, we put out proposed consent agreements, for example, for notice and comment, period. And that allows others in the industry, in the marketplace or just average consumers to weigh in and provide feedback and say this won't work for that reason, et cetera. It's also something we take into consideration when we're thinking through remedies as early as the investigatory phase, even before filing a lawsuit. You're thinking through, okay, what's the end goal here? I kind of tentatively identified the harm. If we were to bring a lawsuit and win, what could we do to fix it? And those issues are always top of mind. You don't want to solve one problem and create two more. I wish I had a sort of a pithy, nice answer for how to fix that. But it's an ongoing judgment call, right? In every case, you're constantly thinking through how do I solve this and do it in a way that doesn't cause me problems.
- [24:13]
Alan Chappelle
Right? And oftentimes it takes a couple of attempts to really get at a would be monopolist. It's sort of like you've got to really, boy, I'm not gonna. I promised myself I would not use a Star wars reference. But it, but it is sort of appropriate here. You've gotta shoot the shot so direct, and then the timing has to be so direct in order to kind of get at the monopolist. So I think the broader point that I'm making is that it often takes a couple of attempts to quote, unquote, get it right as you manage timing and perhaps getting the right judge and right having the exact right cause of action that, that you need. So how does one even approach that, given that there are so many variables in play?
- [24:56]
Commissioner Mark Meador
So two things come to mind. One is, is strategy, right? I think as a law enforcement agency, you can't just be passive. You can't just sit there and just wait for cases to come to you and deal with them as they happen. You need to have an intentional and deliberate law enforcement strategy. What kind of cases are you going to look for? What sort of issues are you going to seek out to be on the lookout for these sort of emergent problems that are coming down the pipe Alongside that, when you have an investigation, whether it was something you went looking for or something that came to you, you know, you don't want to have blinders on that cause. You to just sort of myopically focus on one small issue in front of you in that deal, you want to take the opportunity to understand that industry as best you can. You know, when you talk about. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to address problem with a monopolist. It's very common at FTC and at the antitrust division that you begin an investigation into a merger, and in the course of that, you uncover some monopolization scheme, or in the course of investigating a monopoly, you find out that they engaged in a bunch of acquisitions that weren't reportable over a series of years that led to the position that they're in. And so you want to make sure you're always on the lookout for those other issues and keeping a wide aperture so that things don't slip through the cracks.
- [26:12]
Alan Chappelle
Well, speaking of mergers, so there had been a pretty significant limitation on mergers. I even had a venture capitalist guy come on the podcast a while back, and he was sort of complaining that the overall level of merger activity had been pretty slow and pointed his fingers at a couple of the regulatory environment. Okay. We now seem to have maybe the opposite problem where it seems like there are just so many mergers out there that I personally am having trouble keeping track. How do you get the bandwidth to be able to monitor this in a way that you find effective?
- [26:44]
Commissioner Mark Meador
I mean, I think first and foremost, we are fortunate to have incredibly talented and hardworking staff at both agencies who review all of the filings from the mergers that are put forward. You know, any merger over a certain threshold, they're required to submit packet of information to the government. And we use that to determine whether a deal merits further scrutiny or it's something that we can just let it go through. And so folks work very hard to screen those, to find those deals, and then they work hard to conduct investigations where we find potential concerns. And then you have to make that call, sort of, where do we put our resources? What's most pressing? What presents the greatest harm to consumers that we have the best chance of addressing?
- [27:22]
Alan Chappelle
So I've got one more question for you, and it's kind of a philosophical one, but I think it would be helpful to my audience just for you to maybe open up your brain on this one a little bit, if you would. So for most of the past 20 years, regulators across the globe have pushed the gatekeepers of certain marketplaces, for example, the mobile app stores. They pushed them to more effectively police their marketplaces when it comes to privacy and consumer protection. Now, more recently, it seems like things have evolved where competition law is starting to recognize that there might be a downside to deputizing gatekeepers and giving them too much power. So what are some of the events that, in your opinion, might have led regulators to view some of that policing power in a more negative light? And I think this sort of Gets at your, you know, getting too big notion that we started our conversation with. Sure.
- [28:13]
Commissioner Mark Meador
I mean look, speaking from, you know, my experience, I was on the Hill dealing with the antitrust policy during COVID I think I came back to the Senate in July 2020. And so that was really when a lot of the controversy was starting to get kicked up and was there during, you know, a lot of the de platforming events that happened and parler getting kicked out of the app stores. On the right, certainly the concern around censorship was looming large and I think it remains a big concern. And on the one hand, right you, I think as especially as a conservative, you typically prefer industry to self regulate, to self police rather than needing the state to come in and intervene. But then what you see is when you have a very small number of competitors in the marketplace and they're all ideologically aligned and perhaps coordinating on ideological grounds, you have this uniformity of viewpoint policing that is almost insurmountable. And suddenly competition isn't doing the job of providing alternatives for consumers who want something different to have somewhere else to go. It's a delicate balance to strike, especially in these markets that have very strong network effects. You know, how many app stores can the market really sustain? You know, I think that's why, you know, legislative efforts to, to open up devices to have competing app stores can be really important because that creates the opportunity. And we're not saying that and those competing app stores are going to be gigantic or as big as Google or Apple. But it's important for consumers to have the option so that when they're using their device that they paid for and they own, they have control over what's on it and how it functions. And if they don't like the way that one company is sort of self policing and running its platform, they have some meaningful opportunity to switch to an alternative that's consistent with their own preferences.
- [29:57]
Alan Chappelle
And really that's it. At the end of the day, some level of consumer choice so that if you're unhappy with X, you can walk across the street and go to Y.
- [30:04]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Exactly.
- [30:05]
Alan Chappelle
And that's been one of the challenges of how the marketplace in a lot of areas has developed over the last decade or two is, is that there just aren't enough options. And because option A and option B are in some flavor of collusion, it really isn't always a choice for consumers after all.
- [30:21]
Commissioner Mark Meador
That's right. And you know, typically the idea is if you don't like one store, you take your business elsewhere. With the tech companies, they act so uniformly on many of these issues, we started to hear this, well, if you don't like it, build your own, right? Build your own app store, build your own Twitter or whatever. But then we've seen that even if somebody like a parlor did build their own, they could be deplatformed from web hosting services and from the app stores. And so you can't. You can't even build your own then. And so it's difficult to see how there is any meaningful consumer choice. I think that's when you get to a place when your average person who doesn't really know much about antitrust law or any of that, starts to say, hey, don't we have laws against this? Aren't things supposed to function in a different way? You know, aren't I, as the consumer, is supposed to be the person that these businesses are courting, not me begging them to please give me something that's helpful for my life?
- [31:12]
Alan Chappelle
So this has been a fantastic discussion. I lied before. I do have one more question. If you had. If you had a couple of things that someone operating in the digital media or advertising technology space should take away, what should we be focusing on right now, in your opinion, from a privacy or antitrust standpoint?
- [31:30]
Commissioner Mark Meador
I think one of the most. We talked about this early in our conversation about the primacy of children when we're thinking about privacy online and a lot of the new issues that our various platforms are raising. And so I think when it comes to children and their data and privacy, to be very careful about how you handle that and to understand that we get it. We live in a capitalistic society. The businesses are out there to make money, to succeed, but to win as many consumers as possible. But when you're talking about minors and people under the age of 18, we need to view them as not. Not mere consumers. These are our children. You know, they have parents that are trying to look out for them. That's the future of our country. We shouldn't be viewing our American children as a. A source of data to be monetized, but as a, you know, a population to be protected so that when they grow up into informed adults, they can make their decisions about how to behave in the marketplace and not have that future robbed from them because companies are taking advantage of them beforehand.
- [32:29]
Alan Chappelle
So that's a great point. And one of the things that the business community is struggling with right now is an actual knowledge standard. Like, I kind of get what that means in the context of Coppa, you know, but that's 13. So now you know, is it 15? Is it 16? Is it 18? And I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but it's a bit of a challenge because I hope the answer is not that we're going to end up having to verify and identify everybody visiting every site, because then that creates its own set of challenges.
- [32:59]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Speaking of great things, the FTC does, we're very good at putting on conferences and seminars, and we just recently announced on January 28th we'll be having a conference on age verification. So I'm hoping a lot of these important questions will be discussed then.
- [33:12]
Alan Chappelle
Fantastic. I hope I can make it down to D.C. absolutely. Commissioner Medar, this has been a wonderful conversation. I really appreciate you giving me 30 minutes of your time.
- [33:20]
Commissioner Mark Meador
Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat.
- [33:24]
Monopoly Report Host
That was an intriguing discussion. I really try to bring a diversity of views onto the Monopoly report. So in addition to being an honor.
- [33:33]
Alan Chappelle
To have this discussion with the sitting.
- [33:34]
Monopoly Report Host
FTC commissioner, I'm equally pleased to get these insights from one of the leading conservative antitrust voices today. One thing that strikes me as noteworthy as between the conservative antitrust view coming from Commissioner Meddor and the progressive antitrust view from, say, Lina Khan or Tim Wu, is that they each diagnose the problem from a very similar perspective. The concept that certain companies have become too big to control, and how that philosophy has its roots in a post World War II America is neither liberal nor conservative, and each of the conservative and progressive movements respectively are pointing the finger, in a sense, at the previous generation's regulatory inactivity as a large source of the problem we're facing today. But what I'm not hearing from either side, at least not yet, is a coherent plan to get us out of the current environment where big Tech has become too big to control. In the closing arguments of the Google AdTech antitrust case, Judge Brinkmann noted the economic realities in play that are creating headwinds to antitrust remedies, particularly as they pertain to big Tech. For example, the rapid marketplace change, the length of appeals, behavioral remedies being quicker and easier than structural remedies, the benefit of the doubt often being given to the monopolist, difficulty for government to craft divestiture plans. Well, Commissioner Manor noted that these realities allow the monopolist to hold the marketplace hostage in many respects during this process. Does that mean that antitrust law as it currently stands is not going to be effective in reining in big Tech? It's starting to appear that way. I wrote a piece for the Monopoly Report newsletter a few weeks ago about the regulatory flywheel as it pertains to Big Tech so Part one we start with an antitrust law as a tool, but as we realize the limits of antitrust, we look to the US Congress to enact a law that might balance the competitive landscape. And then we realize that Congress isn't going to be a savior. So we turn our hopes to the eu, which for all its faults has had a better overall record than the US when it comes to reigning in big tech. But thus far, change has been incremental at best. So we're back to square one in the regulatory flywheel. Check out the article if you want. It's in the Monopoly Report. I had author Cory Doctorow on the.
- [36:02]
Alan Chappelle
Podcast a few weeks ago, and he.
- [36:04]
Monopoly Report Host
Believes that the solution lay in building a coalition. A coalition of people who realize that while they may be angry about different issues, in the end they are all angry for the same reasons. And those reasons draw a straight line to big tech. And once they understand that they are all angry for the same reasons, then they become an unstoppable coalition. So I like the concept, but we'll note that, at least for now, the participants in that coalition seem far more interested in fighting amongst themselves. I'm not sure where that leaves us, but if you're out there listening and you think you have the answer, I'm all ears. As we head into 2026, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank each of you for listening. Digital media and regulatory is admittedly a niche topic, which is why it's really remarkable that we are getting several thousand downloads each month and that the number continues to grow. Thanks to you all. If you have thoughts regarding potential topics or guests, please find me on LinkedIn or@chappellemail.com meanwhile, if you haven't already, please subscribe to the show@monopolyreportpod.com or on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks again for listening and have a wonderful holiday season.
- [37:26]
Alan Chappelle
Foreign.
- [37:30]
Marketecture Podcast Host
Thank you for listening to the marketecture podcast. New episodes come out every Friday and an insightful vendor interview is published each Monday. You can subscribe to our library of hundreds of executive interviews at marketecture tv. You can also sign up for free for our weekly newsletter with my original strategic insights on the week's news at News Marketing. And if you're feeling social, we operate a vibrant slack community that you can apply to join@adtechgod.com.