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I want to try something slightly different today, and go 'off-topic' with some content that more fits the Credit Writedowns blog of yore, when I covered a much wider range of topics. And so, this post is going to be about technology,…

A general challenge facing competition authorities in the digital era is learning how to apply the traditional tools of competition policy in multi-sided platform environments. This column argues that the Google Android case offers a great…

Why clickbait journalism will dominate news information on the free Internet

This past holiday sales season was weak for a number of retailers in the US. But, discounting was the culprit rather than poor demand by consumers. I see retail sales holding up but a shake out in retail is sure to come as the deflationary…

When I worked at Yahoo! ten years ago during the age of Terry Semel, Yahoo! was being turned into a media company. I always saw this strategic move as a mistake - the strategic error that allowed Google to usurp Yahoo!'s position in search…

Back in December I wrote an article on how site scrapers were gaming Google's search algorithm in order to make advertising money from articles that they scrape from RSS feeds. Just after I wrote this piece, Google got religion about spam…

I am excited about the opportunities ahead that social networking presents. Right now, Facebook is shooting itself in the foot by compromising user trust with dubious moves on privacy issues. However, if Facebook plays its cards right and…

This is just a brief update regarding changes at Credit Writedowns. First, you may have noticed that my posting schedule has slowed down a decent amount. I have a few things on my plate and haven't been able to devote as much time to…

Internet search is broken. Battered by spammers, content farms and black hat optimizers, the typical Internet search is a horrible mess. Try basic search terms like "washing machine". Or try a term relevant to this site like…