Skip to content

Dina Srinivasan

Dina Srinivasan is a researcher, and Fellow with the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale University.

Most recently, Ms. Srinivasan’s research and economic analysis of new, tech markets provided the foundation for government enforcement of antitrust laws against two of the largest market cap companies in the world. Her 2020 research, “Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets: Competition Policy Should Lean on the Principles of Financial Market Regulation“, explains how Google distorts electronically traded ad markets by engaging in conduct that lawmakers normally prohibit (e.g., conduct analogous to insider trading and front running). Her research instigated a shift in the House and Senate and a coalition of U.S. States subsequently filed suit against the company relying on the architecture of Ms. Srinivasan’s thinking. “The Antitrust Case Against Facebook”, published in 2019, laid out the correlation between privacy and economics. Congress called on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation; and in 2020, the Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 48 Attorneys General filed actions against Facebook. She’s been profiled by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Her research and commentary on tech and competition are regularly covered in the domestic and global media.

Previously, Ms. Srinivasan founded an ad technology company whose technology was acquired by a division of WPP, Kantar Media SRDS (NASDAQ). She spent four years as an executive at WPP. In the late 1990s, she founded iMSGu, a text messaging platform that allowed users to send messages across different mobile spectrum networks (CDMA, TDMA, GSM); the company folded in 2002. Ms. Srinivasan holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she studied law & economics and was an Olin Fellow with the Kauffman Program in Law, Economics and Entrepreneurship. She lives in the Bay Area..

Research and Other Writing

  • Statement to U.S. Congress, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, Online Platforms and Market Power, Hearing on The Role of Data and Privacy in Competition, Part 3, Friday, October 18, 2019

Selected media coverage …

  • The Antitrust Case Against Big Tech, Shaped by Tech Industry Exiles, The New York Times, December 20, 2020, profile
  • WNYC, On the Media, The Cost of Facebook’s Monopoly is User Privacy, December 18, 2020, interview
  • She Argued Facebook is a Monopoly. To Her Surprise, People Listened, The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2019, profile
  • Financial Times, Tech Companies Kick Twitter Rival Parler Off Their Platforms, January 9, 2021, comment on the Parler, Amazon, and the de-platforming of former President Donald Trump
  • ProMarket, University of Chicago, “Free is Not Free”: What the Apple-Facebook Spat and the GameStop-Robinhood Fiasco Have in Common, February 12, 2021, interview
  • Wired, The Smoking Gun in the Facebook Antitrust Case, December 9, 2020, covering Facebook research and associated litigation initiated by 48 Attorneys General
  • Yale University, Competition Policy in Digital Markets Could Lean on Financial Market Regulation, October 13, 2020, talk
  • Congress cites research and calls on the Federal Trade Commission to open an antitrust investigation of Facebook, March 19, 2019
  • Wired, Should Google’s Ad Market Be Regulated Like the Stock Market? A Leading Antitrust Scholar Says Yes. Congress May be Listening. August 31, 2020, covering Google research and momentum in Congress
  • The New York Times, The Case Against Google, October 22, 2020, Opinion, covering Google research
  • 2019 Antitrust and Competition Conference, University of Chicago, Privacy and Data Protection: The Broader Debate, panel member
  • The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, Big Tech: A Disruptor of Democracy?, panel member
  • CNBC, “Squawk Alley”, commentary on U.S. antitrust probes
  • Center for Innovation, Growth, and Society, Freedom of Speech; Freedom from Speech, Institute for New Economic Thinking, San Francisco, CA, May 23, 2019, participant & panel member
  • CBC News, comment on the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy, May 27, 2019
  • CBS News, Why Big Tech’s Big Breakup May Never Come, June 4, 2019, comment on Google, Facebook and Amazon
  • NBC Today Show, April 15, 2019, comment on Facebook’s data breach
  • Lessons for India from Three Woman Taking on Google, Facebook and Amazon, The Ken, May 8, 2019, interview/profile
  • Radio: Talkies, KPFA 94.1, with Kris Welch, Berkeley, CA, June 6, 2019, interview. Facebook Antitrust Actions, Wort 89.9, Madison, WI, May 8, 2019, interview. Ring of Fire Radio with Sam Seder, July 13, 2019, interview
  • Big Tech and the Starfish Problem, Public Knowledge, June 26, 2019, panel member
  • Podcast, Facebook is a monopoly, but breaking it up isn’t the answer, Digiday, March 19, 2019, interview