American antitrust law is at a crossroads, characterized by calls from the Biden Administration and members of Congress to “break up” big technology companies. Traditional measures for conducting merger reviews and enforcement actions have been challenged, with suggestions that the evolving digital economy warrants new standards to promote competition. This Article examines the founding principles of antitrust law and reviews major media and technology cases brought against motion picture studios, IBM, and Microsoft, to help analyze the long-term impact of such cases. The author, a former technology executive and law professor, advocates new laws to protect and value data privacy and personal information, but warns against revising anti-competition principles to new constructs that can shift with the political winds and cause economic uncertainty.
