Date: 10/06/2002 05:42 pm (Sunday)
From: <[redacted]>
To: FTC
Subject: comments on barriers to e-commerce

Date: October 6, 2002

To: Ted Cruz, Director, Office of Policy Planning

From: Bert Foer, President, American Antitrust Institute

Re: Materials Relating to "Possible Anticompetitive Efforts to Restrict Competition on the Internet"

Thank you for your letter of September 26 inviting information relating to barriers to e-commerce competition, for the FTC Workshop on October 8-10. We would like to call your attention to the following materials produced by the American Antitrust Institute.

1. http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent2/204.cfm. At this site you will find three papers we recently presented at a workshop AAI co-sponsored with the National Consumers League on "Supplier-Owned Joint Ventures." The papers deal with industries in which e-commerce companies are having difficulty competing against joint ventures that have been established by their suppliers. The industries considered in these papers are: travel, music, movies, currency exchange, hotels, and cosmetics. We have tried to draw attention to patterns of collaborative activity that are likely to undermine new electronic entrants.
 
2. http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent/136.cfm. These are comments we filed in the contact lens class action settlement. They raise questions relating to remedy in cases where a major supplier cuts off supplies to an e-commerce customer whose traditional competitors (in this case primarily eye doctors) have complained.
3. http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/recent/129.pdf. This is an article that I published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing titled "E-Commerce Meets Antitrust: A Primer."

I am hopeful that my schedule will permit me to observe parts of the workshop. The two earlier B2B workshops played an important role in informing the Commission and the public about dynamic developments in the economy, calling special attention to areas of potential danger. I am sure that your upcoming workshop will continue this outstanding example of the FTC's flexible authority for monitoring and influencing events that affect consumers and competition.