Attention economy exploits user data and autonomy despite antitrust efforts

As digital platforms increasingly monetize user time and engagement, lawmakers are searching for ways to regulate the so-called attention economy. A new peer-reviewed study, Regulating the Attention Economy: The Possibilities and Limits of Antitrust, published in Politics & Society, examines whether antitrust law can rein in the power of dominant technology companies. 

The study argues that competition policy has important but limited uses in this area and that safeguarding user autonomy requires more direct restrictions on corporate practices.

Can competition policy restrain big tech in the attention economy?

Antitrust has traditionally been the main legal tool for challenging corporate dominance. Mariani’s research evaluates whether it can be effective against the unique dynamics of the attention economy, where services are often free to users and revenue flows through data harvesting and advertising.

The paper notes that firms such as Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft do not simply dominate through size and scale. They structure user choices, design engagement-maximizing interfaces, and rely on programmatic advertising systems that exploit behavioral data. These practices go beyond conventional monopolistic behavior by undermining user decision-making itself.

The consumer welfare standard, which has been the cornerstone of U.S. antitrust law, struggles to address this challenge. Since many digital services are offered at zero price, regulators cannot easily show harm through higher costs. Instead, harms come from lost autonomy, data extraction, and manipulation, factors not accounted for in traditional antitrust models.

The study reviews new approaches such as Tim Wu’s proposed A-SSNIP test, which frames relevant markets in terms of attention rather than price. While such frameworks can help measure competitive harm, Mariani warns that relying solely on competition risks overlooking the deeper issue: the commodification of human attention.

How does the attention economy harm users beyond market power?

Competition alone may make matters worse. If attention markets are treated like any other industry, greater competition could push firms to adopt even more aggressive strategies to capture and monetize engagement. This would intensify, rather than reduce, the use of manipulative designs and invasive data practices.

The study argues that the defining harm of the attention economy is the erosion of autonomy. Digital platforms use design features, sometimes referred to as dark patterns, that guide user behavior toward outcomes favorable to the platform rather than the individual. By shaping decisions and limiting meaningful consent, these companies weaken the capacity of users to act in their own interests.

Data harvesting further compounds the problem. Programmatic advertising and algorithmic targeting depend on vast streams of personal information, collected often without users’ full awareness or understanding. The study highlights how this cycle creates a structural dependence: more engagement leads to more data, which fuels more precise targeting, locking platforms and users into an extractive relationship.

Traditional antitrust remedies, such as breaking up firms or requiring interoperability, may do little to stop these underlying practices. In fact, they may encourage smaller competitors to replicate the same exploitative tactics in order to survive.

What regulatory tools are needed beyond antitrust?

Protecting users in the attention economy requires moving beyond competition law to direct statutory and administrative interventions, the study concludes. She calls for ex ante restrictions on harmful practices, including bans on manipulative interface designs and tighter controls on programmatic advertising.

The study compares approaches in the United States and Europe. U.S. law remains rooted in consumer welfare metrics, making it difficult to address harms not expressed in price terms. By contrast, European legislation such as the Digital Services Act, the Data Act, and the AI Act explicitly incorporates protections for user autonomy and limits certain data practices. These frameworks suggest that more comprehensive regulatory strategies are possible.

The paper argues that policymakers should focus on autonomy as the central value. Regulations should limit how companies design choice architectures, govern the data they are allowed to collect, and constrain the use of behavioral manipulation in advertising. Without these measures, the attention economy will continue to exploit users even if competition increases.

The debate should not frame competition and autonomy as mutually exclusive, the author asserts. Antitrust can still play a role by preventing concentration of power, ensuring fairer market structures, and creating space for alternative models. But it cannot be the primary mechanism for protecting users in an economy where the commodity itself is human attention.