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Uber Keeps on Trucking

by Isabelle Styslinger on July 20, 2017

When one of Uber’s self-driving trucks drove 200 kilometers from Fort Collins to Colorado Spring to deliver a shipment of Budweiser, it seemed Uber was primed to disrupt the estimated $800 billion trucking industry. Optimism was bolstered by Uber’s acquisition of the self-driving trucking startup, OttoMotto, last year.

After the acquisition and successful test run, Lior Ron, OttoMotto’s co-founder, told Reuters he “expected truckers would be using the firm’s driverless technology to haul freight by 2017 as part of a suite of trucking services offered under the Uber banner.”

Despite these early efforts to pair automation with hauling services, Uber’s trucking application, titled “Uber Freight,” attempts only to connect truck drivers with cargo needing to be hauled. Bill Driegert, Uber Freight’s director of operations, reported the company’s self-driving truck initiative and freight hauling service are on “separate tracks.”

Uber’s concentration on matching shipments to carriers means entering a more competitive environment. Uber Freight is similar to competitor services like Convoy, Doft, and Trucker Path, which also connect drivers to shipments.

Apple iPhone, iTunes… now iHealth?

by Isabelle Styslinger on July 19, 2017

CNBC recently learned of a secret team in Apple’s health unit that is working to create the iTunes of health. That is, they are working to bring users’ medical records and lab results to one centralized interface on iOS devices.

Although more than 96% of hospitals and 80% of physician practices are currently digitized — thanks, in large part, to the $30 billion spent on installing electronic records systems in hospitals and doctors’ offices since 2009 — the challenge now is to connect these systems together.

“Technology is the easy part,” Jodi Daniel, former health IT official, asserts. “The really challenging part is the business issues the operational issues and the trust issues with exchanging information,” Daniel concluded.

#CompetitionTalks: Starting our Expert Opinion Series on Competition Policy in Digital Markets

by Jakob Kucharczyk on July 17, 2017

How well do current competition rules work in digital markets? How easy or difficult is it to apply established competition law concepts in multi-sided markets? What should we make of relevant cases? Should competition enforcement absorb ever more public policy objectives?

These are just some of the questions that are currently being discussed by the competition policy community around the world. To shed some light on these issues, we are excited to announce the start of our #CompetitionTalks series with competition policy experts.

For the beginning, we are proud to present to you interviews with Professor Pinar Akman from Leeds University, Alfonso Lamadrid de Pablo from law firm Garrigues as well as Pablo Colomo Ibáñez, Professor at the London School of Economics. (Some might say that our friends Alfonso and Pablo are better known for running the Chillin’Competition blog!)

Construction Disruption: Q&A with EquipmentShare

by Courtney Duffy on July 14, 2017

This is the first post in a series dedicated to highlighting small and medium-sized enterprises across the country employing technology in new and innovative ways.

“Innovation” may not be the first word you associate with the construction industry, but three-year-old EquipmentShare makes a strong case for a reframing of that narrative. The company, which is headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, and has a presence across the urban centers of Texas as well as Jacksonville, Florida, connects contractors with a platform to rent and lend equipment on a peer-to-peer basis, empowering them to earn income off of equipment that would otherwise go unused. More recently, EquipmentShare added telematics and equipment utilization services to the mix. We interviewed Willy Schlacks, EquipmentShare’s co-founder and president, to learn more about technology disruption both within the company, and in the industry at large.

Courtney Duffy (DisCo): How has the construction industry, as well as the needs of its participants, changed as we’ve entered the digital age?

Willy Schlacks (EquipmentShare): Construction has traditionally been a tech-averse industry, slow to adopt new technologies and reliant on pen-and-paper or otherwise manual processes. But just like many other industries, construction companies have been forced to do more with less. Contractors and other players in the space have been looking for ways to find efficiencies, cut costs or otherwise boost their bottom line and are turning to technology to do just that.

The biggest benefit that technology brings to the construction industry is the ability to capture and use data. Technologies like telematics are enabling contractors and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to capture data from their equipment–something that wasn’t possible before–and use that data to more intelligently manage their maintenance schedules, hours of service and more. There are so many applications in the construction industry for data that can all be used to drive efficiencies, productivity and greater safety.

Interactive Storytelling: Allowing us to decide the plot of House of Cards?

by Isabelle Styslinger on July 13, 2017

It seems as if everyone is experimenting with television. BuzzFeed reportedly has 31 shows at various stages of production, Facebook is set to release its own original programming later this year, and Verizon and Google have invested millions in digital media platforms and studios. With so many emerging players, competition for viewers’ attention seems more challenging than ever — especially for the shows outside of name-brand networks and companies. And, yet, a low-budget, Spanish telenovela streamed on Facebook Live is holding the attention of millions of viewers.

On the surface the show seems like something you’ve seen before; it has a young maiden in need of rescuing, a deceptive wife, a dashing hero, and a faithful steed. What sets the telenovela apart is that the show pauses intermittently for about 30 seconds, in which time audience members can vote on what the characters should do next.

Super Deluxe, the Los Angeles entertainment company behind the telenovela, began the show to test out how viewers responded to scripted content. Its inherently interactive nature, however, quickly attracted millions of views.

While the telenovela’s interactivity may currently set it apart from other programs, recent consumer trends and developing projects may lead to it become more mainstream — marking yet another shift in how we consume television.

Facing Disruption, Newspapers Demand Right to Collude

by Matt Schruers on July 12, 2017

As was widely reported this week [1] [2] [3] [4], large news publishers are banding together to demand an antitrust exemption from Congress. According to the media trade group championing this effort, this would enable collusive bargaining in digital advertising.

The stated reason for news publishers demanding this get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to the nation’s antitrust laws? Technology has disrupted the newspaper industry, and Google and Facebook, publishers claim, are too tough to compete against. (Nevermind that News Corp., Verizon’s Oath, Snapchat, Twitter, and others all aim to do exactly that.)

With few exceptions, competitors colluding is almost always a violation of antitrust law. And for good reason – as courts have long recognized, there is almost no outcome good for consumers when competitors get together to decide their business strategy. Needless to say, antitrust regulators often oppose such exemptions (e.g., this recent example in Australia), and Congress rarely grants them. They are almost always coupled with other regulatory schemes that protect the consumer interest. MORE »

Should Antitrust Policy Begin with Competition or Competitors?

by Matt Schruers on July 10, 2017

A recent Washington Post editorial criticized European regulators’ years-old Google Shopping case — previously covered here on DisCo — as “a case of punishment without crime”, and argues that regulators concerns seem “a bit dated.” Other commentary in the WaPo has defended the EU decision, such as Jonathan Taplin’s factually incorrect June 28 op-ed. The Post editorial board appears to disagree.

The Post’s column attributes EU regulators’ decision to Trans-Atlantic differences in first principles of antitrust theory. In recent decades, U.S. antitrust policy has focused on encouraging competition to protect consumer welfare. While European antitrust policy has the same objective, this particular case seems to be more about protecting competitors from one another. MORE »

Interoperability and the Copyright Office’s Section 1201 Report

by Jonathan Band on July 6, 2017

In its recent report on Section 1201 of Title 17, the Copyright Office amended—in a positive way—its prior interpretation of the interoperability exception in section 1201(f). The Office corrected its assertion in recent section 1201 rulemakings that section 1201(f) does not permit a consumer’s acts of circumvention in order to achieve interoperability between two computer programs. Although this is a highly technical issue, it could have reverberations throughout the economy.

Section 1201 prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs) that restrict access to copyrighted works. It also prohibits the development and distribution of the tools necessary to achieve this circumvention.

Section 1201 contains a variety of exceptions, including section 1201(f), which is entitled “Reverse Engineering.” Section 1201(f)(1) clearly permits the circumvention of a TPM that control access to a computer program for the purpose of “identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs.” That is, section 1201(f)(1) permits circumvention of a digital lock on a computer program for the purpose of reverse engineering the program to achieve interoperability with that program. Section 1201(f)(2) permits the development of the tools necessary to perform the circumvention– to unlock the TPMs.

However, during the rulemakings the Copyright Office has conducted to adopt temporary exemptions to section 1201, the question has arisen whether section 1201(f)(3) permits the circumvention of a TPM on an ongoing basis to achieve interoperability. In other words, after a firm unlocks a TPM to reverse engineer a software platform, may the firm market an application that unlocks the TPM each time it runs on that platform? And may a consumer then unlock the TPM whenever she runs the application?

The Real Cost of Filtering Technology

by Maud Sacquet on July 5, 2017

Over the past few months, filtering technology – its costs and consequences – has been a hot topic of discussion in Brussels’ policy circles, due to the European copyright reform.

This is because, as explained in previous blog posts, the European copyright reform introduces mandatory filtering requirements for platforms hosting user-generated content (such as family videos, pictures or written comments) – thereby going against article 15 of the e-Commerce directive (which prohibits general monitoring obligations).

Proponents of the European Commission’s copyright proposal argue that filtering technology is not expensive and would ensure that no copyright-infringing content is available on such platforms. Vice-President Ansip, for example, stated on June 19 that filtering tools such as Audible Magic cost “400, 500 bucks” to identify 10.000 songs.

Such claims should be challenged – and were thankfully thoroughly debunked by CopyBuzz, which reminds us that “YouTube invested more than $60 million in its Content ID technology” and that “SoundCloud spent more than €5 million building its own filtering technology and still must dedicate seven full-time employees to maintain the technology”.

The Google Shopping Decision: When the Only Way to Be Law-Compliant is to Discriminate Against Yourself

by Jakob Kucharczyk on June 29, 2017

After an investigation that has lasted for more than seven years (we discussed it earlier here), this week the Commission issued its Decision in the Google Shopping case. The verdict: Google abused its dominant position in general search services by favoring its own Google Shopping price comparison product in search results. While the record fine imposed on the company quickly became the headline-grabbing part of the Decision, it’s not even the most important element. What is much more important is what this Decision tells us about how the Commission views the dynamics of competition in digital markets and what it thinks Google should do to remedy the abuse. Let’s walk through some key aspects one-by-one.

At first sight, the allegation that Google plays unfairly seems attractive. It is the most popular search engine and giving prominence to its own price comparison service will naturally not be to the liking of anyone competing with similar services. But the key aspect of competition law enforcement is that it’s not about a subjective judgment of what is ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’. Competition law is concerned about conduct that is anti-competitive. The question is whether Google behaves anti-competitively with the aim of foreclosing competitors in a given market. Answering that question objectively against the background of applicable law is much more difficult than judging subjectively whether something is fair or not.

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