Today, we’re happy to announce our newest white paper, “Building the Digital Platform Commission: How To Design a Regulator To Rein in Big Tech,” by Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld and Policy Director Lisa Macpherson. The paper discusses the need for a sector-specific digital regulator and suggests how to design that regulator to enhance competition and protect consumers.
Since their creation in the late 20th century, digital platforms have come to play a central role in the global economy as well as in our everyday lives. While these platforms ushered in an era of new opportunities for innovation and free expression, they also pose real concerns about the impact of a handful of huge, largely unregulated digital platforms on that same free expression, privacy, personal and societal well being, and even democracy. These concerns fueled Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld’s 2019 book, “The Case for the Digital Platform Act,” in which he outlined the concept of a dedicated digital regulator to address these problems.
This paper proposes structuring such a new digital regulator – the Digital Platform Commission, or DPC – as an independent commission similar to the Federal Communications Commission, and recommends that the DPC have broad powers in regard to competition, consumer protection, and research. This new agency would:
- complement, and coordinate with, agencies with existing powers to address anti-consumer and anticompetitive conduct;
- develop expertise and set standards and best practices through research;
- impose effective remedies;
- monitor compliance; and
- enforce effective compliance by directly bringing actions in court.
The paper is a product of a series of listening sessions and a Public Knowledge Policy Konclave, a workshop that brought together 25 subject matter experts from law, technology, policy, and academia to explore the need for a specialized digital regulatory agency in the United States. You may attend our in-person launch event, “Designing the Digital Platform Commission,” at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C. on April 28 for a paper presentation and discussion featuring moderator Justin Hendrix, CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press, and expert panelists.
The following can be attributed to Harold Feld, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge:
“Digital platforms have become central to our daily lives, yet we have virtually no remedy if they abuse their power. To the extent federal or state laws provide protection, it is scattered among a confusing number of agencies with their own, limited pieces of the puzzle. The largest platforms can easily outlast the effort of any person or state to regulate them. The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have spent five years suing Google and Meta, with more litigation to come. The lack of any real limits on digital platforms will not fix itself. Only when Congress steps up and creates a focused agency with real authority will we be able to control our own digital future.”
You may view the paper here. You may also register to attend the in-person launch event on April 28 at Jenner & Block in Washington, D.C.
Members of the media may contact Communications Director Shiva Stella with inquiries, interview requests, or to join the Public Knowledge press list at shiva@publicknowledge.org or 405-249-9435.