• F.T.C. Chair Lina Khan Upends Antitrust Standards by Suing Meta - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/technology/ftc-lina-khan-meta.html

    WASHINGTON — Early in her tenure as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan declared that she would rein in the power of the largest technology companies in a dramatically new way.

    “We’re trying to be forward looking, anticipating problems and taking fast action,’’ Ms. Khan said in an interview last month. She promised to focus on “next-generation technologies,” and not just on areas where tech behemoths were already well established.

    This week, Ms. Khan took her first step toward stopping the tech monopolies of the future when she sued to block a small acquisition by Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, of the virtual-reality fitness start-up Within. The deal was significant for Meta’s development of the so-called metaverse, which is a nascent technology and far from mainstream.

    In doing so, Ms. Khan upended decades of antitrust standards, potentially setting off a wholesale shift in the way Washington enforces competition across corporate America. At the heart of the F.T.C.’s lawsuit is the idea that regulators can apply antitrust law without waiting for a market to mature to the point where it is clear which companies hold the most power. The F.T.C. said such early action was justified because Meta’s deal would probably eliminate competition in the young virtual-reality market.

    The F.T.C.’s lawsuit against Meta in the budding virtual-reality market is a “deliberately experimental case that seeks to extend the boundaries of merger enforcement,” said William Kovacic, a former chair of the agency. “Such cases are certainly harder to win.”

    The F.T.C.’s action immediately caused a ruckus within antitrust circles and across the tech industry. Silicon Valley tech executives said that moving to block a deal in an embryonic area of technology might stifle innovation and spook technologists from taking bold leaps in new areas.

    For Ms. Khan, winning the lawsuit may be less of a priority than showing it’s possible to file against a tech deal while it is still early. She has said regulators were too cautious in the past about intervening in mergers for fear of harming innovation, allowing a wave of deals between tech giants and start-ups that eventually cemented their dominance.

    “What we can see is that inaction after inaction after inaction can have severe costs,” she said in an interview with The New York Times and CNBC in January. “And that’s what we’re really trying to reverse.”

    The F.T.C. accused Meta of building a virtual reality “empire,” beginning in 2014 with its purchase of Oculus, the maker of the Quest virtual-reality headset. Since then, Meta has acquired around 10 virtual-reality app makers, such as the maker of a Viking combat game, Asgard’s Wrath, and several first-person shooter and sports games.

    By buying Within and its Supernatural virtual-reality fitness app, the F.T.C. said, Meta wouldn’t create its own app to compete and would scare potential rivals from trying to create alternative apps. That would hobble competition and consumers, the agency said.

    “This acquisition poses a reasonable probability of eliminating both present and future competition,” according to the lawsuit. “And Meta would be one step closer to its ultimate goal of owning the entire ‘Metaverse.’”

    The F.T.C. is reviewing other tech deals, including Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of the gaming company Activision and Amazon’s $3.9 billion merger with One Medical, a national chain of primary care clinics. In addition, the agency has been investigating Amazon on claims of monopoly abuses in its marketplace of third-party sellers.

    Ms. Khan appears to be prepared for long legal battles with the tech giants even if the cases do not end up going the F.T.C.’s way.

    In her earlier interview with The Times and CNBC, she said, “Even if it’s not a slam-dunk case, even if there is a risk you might lose, there can be enormous benefits from taking that risk.”

    #Lina_Khan #Federal_Trade_Commission #Etats-Unis #Concurrence #Economie_numérique

  • Opinion | The Final Frontier Soon May No Longer Belong to All of Us - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/opinion/russia-us-outer-space.html

    The Russian government has said that it will‌ withdraw from the International Space Station‌ “after 2024.” Instead of choosing multilateral cooperation, it plans to build its own station and send cosmonauts there to continue space research and exploration.

    Russia’s announcement sounds ominous — particularly given its invasion of Ukraine — but ‌this move, part of a broader trend away from multilateralism in international space law, is but one recent signal of the fraying of international space cooperation. Another was the Artemis Accords, a legal framework designed to potentially regulate future commercial activities in outer space, which was created under the Trump‌ administration and upheld by the Biden ‌‌administration. Such actions threaten multilateralism beyond Earth and portend a future where space may no longer belong, equally, to all people.

    A number of U.N. treaties‌‌ regulate outer space, and ‌strong legal norms ‌bolster those global rules. The foundational agreement is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which lays out ‌‌the principles that govern outer space, the moon and other celestial bodies. Signed in the middle of the Cold War, the treaty was a symbol of the triumph of science over politics: States could cooperate in space, even as the prospect of mutual destruction loomed on Earth.

    The symbolic value of the treaty is obvious: Nationality recedes into the background when astronauts are floating in space. But beyond that, it has created standards and practices to prevent environmental contamination of the moon and other celestial bodies. It promotes data sharing, including about the many objects, like satellites and spacecraft, launched into space, which helps to avoid collisions. And its codified norms of the common heritage of mankind, peaceful use and scientific cooperation help preserve multilateralism in the face of states’ derogations.

    But the looming prospect of the commercialization of space has begun to test the limits of international space law. In 2020, NASA, alone, created the Artemis Accords, which challenge the foundational multilateral principles of ‌prior space agreements. These are rules primarily drafted by the United States that other countries are now adopting. This is not collaborative multilateral rule making but rather the export of U.S. laws abroad to a coalition of the willing.

    The accords take the legal form of a series of bilateral treaties with 21 foreign nations, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the U.A.E. and Britain. This is not simply a relic of the antiglobalist rhetoric and policies of the Trump administration. Just two weeks ago, ‌ Saudi Arabia‌ signed the Artemis Accords, during President Biden’s visit.

    Moreover, the accords open up the possibility of mining the moon or other celestial bodies for resources. They create “safety zones” where states may extract resources, though the document states that these activities must be undertaken in accordance with the ‌Outer Space Treaty. Legal experts point out that these provisions could violate the principle of nonappropriation, which prohibits countries from declaring parts of space as their sovereign territory. Others suggest that it is important to get in front of the changing technological landscap‌e, arguing that when mining the moon becomes possible, there should already be rules in place to regulate such activities‌. Failure to do so could result in a ‌‌crisis similar to that around seabed mining‌‌, which is poised to begin even though U.N. rules have yet to be finalized.

    In the end, Russia’s withdrawal from the International Space Station‌ is but one piece of a larger set of fluid issues in space governance. ‌Russia and the United States — powerful, spacefaring states — have taken steps that challenge existing rules and norms. Russia alone cannot dismantle the collective efforts to maintain space as a peaceful zone of scientific research and exploration, but the current system is in trouble and is likely to be replaced with U.S.-made regulations that allow for the future commercialization of space. That future is the real threat to multilateralism and to humanity’s rights to the final frontier.

    #Espace #Communs