Forbes magazine interviews Dr Konstantinos Stylianou
Dr Stylianou was asked by Forbes to answer questions on milestone antitrust cases brought by the US government against Google and Facebook.
Recent weeks have seen increased antitrust activity in the US, with the government suing Facebook and Google on monopolistic practices, and challenging the acquisition of Plaid, a fintech company, by Visa.
Associate Professor Konstantinos Stylianou was interviewed by Forbes magazine alongside four other antitrust experts from NYU, UC Irvine, UC Davis, and University of Georgia to get their views on these developments.
Professor Stylianou commented that “the activity in antitrust enforcement is certainly welcome and perhaps long overdue” but he fears that “it was all done sloppily, with unclear theories of harm, weak evidence, and unsuitable remedies”. On the controversial issue of whether WhatsApp and Instagram, two services that are owned by Facebook, should be divested from it, Professor Stylianou said that even though “breaking up companies can certainly be done” it is unclear in this particular case that consumers stand to gain since “Instagram and WhatsApp grew to be tremendously good and popular products in Facebook’s hands, and there is certainly no lack of competition in either social photo-sharing or messaging apps”.
