Video Game Loot Boxes Aren’t Illegal Gambling
Plus Amazon, Merger Guidelines, Chinese dissidents, AI speech, and more…
Loot Boxes: Corbin and Andy filed an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit to affirm a lower court’s decision holding that loot boxes don’t constitute illegal gambling devices under California law.
FTC: Berin and Santana filed comments to the FTC in support of a petition for rulemaking from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to amend the Commission’s current rule on disqualification of Commissioners.
Amazon Lawsuit: On the latest Tech Policy Podcast, Corbin and Geoff Manne, president of the International Center for Law and Economics (ICLE), discussed the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon.
Bilal also participated in an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) panel to debate the merits and implications of the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon. He was quoted in Broadband Breakfast.
Merger Guidelines: On the latest episode of our Rethinking Antitrust podcast, Bilal spoke with Bill Blumenthal and Doug Melamed on whether the proposed revised Merger Guidelines are consistent with current economic theory and legal doctrine. Subscribe to the show and leave us a review to help others find it!
Bilal was also quoted by Northwest Indiana Times (paywall) on his concerns that the guidelines ignore new theories and empirical results in antitrust economics. For more, checkout our comment to the FTC.
CCP / Internet Freedom: In City Journal, Corbin reviewed Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future—an account of the dissidents using digital tools to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to erase history. His review was also featured in RealClearBooks.
First Amendment: While discussing H.B. 1181—a Texas anti-porn law requiring age verification—Techdirt mentioned Ari’s piece on the First Amendment implications, Corbin’s piece on what Judge Frank Easterbrook can teach us, and the amicus brief we signed onto urging the Fifth Circuit to find the bill unconstitutional.
WRAL News quoted Ari’s testimony last month on AI and the future of our elections. “There is no indication that deepfakes pose a serious risk of materially misleading voters and changing their actual voting behavior,” he said.
Child Protection: This week, multiple state AG’s filed a lawsuit alleging that Meta’s services are harmful to kids. Berin’s thread explains why this will be hard to prove under the FTC’s 1983 Deception Policy Statement.
The lawsuit is part of the moral panic around kids and social media discussed on a recent episode of Tech Policy Podcast, featuring Walter Olson. That episode was also recently highlighted on the Cato at Liberty blog.
Video game loot boxes and illegal gambling?
They’re just not on the same level!