Designated Emphasis in Political Economy student calls for revised approach to antitrust regulation in the digital era

Establishing regulations to mitigate the harmful effects of the attention economy has proven difficult for governments. Some scholars and policymakers have looked to anti-trust to reign in the market power of the large technology companies that control the attention economy. However, enhancing competition may be insufficient to address the actual harms to user autonomy, argues Isabella Mariani in a new article published in the peer-reviewed journal Politics and Society.

Evaluating the role for anti-trust in regulating the attention economy, Mariani, a Jurisprudence and Social Policy doctoral candidate and Designated Emphasis in Political Economy student, argues that preserving user autonomy — not enhancing competition — should be the motivating goal of regulation. In fact, she shows, enhancing competition in the attention economy may exacerbate its negative effects on user autonomy. Mariani proposes instead that regulators establish ex ante (preventative) restrictions on the practices of technology companies that center the autonomy of the user.

Read Mariani’s open-access article now from Sage Journals.