Protecting Consumers & Innovators

Major corporations really want you to know how much they care about small businesses — as long as those small businesses don’t compete with them or cause them too much trouble.

“This sends a signal that the antitrust laws are not good enough,” Mr. Hovenkamp said of the rulings. “It’s going to pour pretty cold water on the idea that the existing antitrust laws can do the job.”

Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham and Democratic Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks teamed up to introduce a resolution yesterday to study whether California must revise antitrust laws for this era of online dominance — a sign of where the winds are blowing for a California-born industry whose political standing has rapidly eroded in recent years from golden child to problem child.