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Antitrust Chronicle® – Free Isn’t Free?

BY | September 27, 2021

Dear Readers, What is a “free” service? Intuitively, and historically, a “free” service would be defined, simply, as one that merely does not require payment at the point of sale.…

Dear Readers,

What is a “free” service? Intuitively, and historically, a “free” service would be defined, simply, as one that merely does not require payment at the point of sale.

Yet, new business models, facilitated by the Internet, have upended the notion of “free.” In particular, with regard to user-facing services such as online search, social networking, image and video hosting (along with countless others), users are not obliged to pay for the service in monetary terms.

In tod

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