A new commodity brings about a highly profitable, fast-growing industry, urging antitrust（反垄断）regulators to step in to check those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital age. The most valuable firms are Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. All look unstoppable.

    Such situations have led to calls for the tech giants to be broken up. But size alone is not a crime. The giants’ success has benefited consumers. Few want to live without search engines or a quick delivery. Far from charging consumers high prices, many of these services are free (users pay, in effect, by handing over yet more data). And the appearance of new-born giants suggests that newcomers can make waves, too.

    But there is cause for concern. The internet has made data abundant, all-present and far more valuable, changing the nature of data and competition. Google initially used the data collected from users to target advertising better. But recently it has discovered that data can be turned into new services: translation and visual recognition, to be sold to other companies. Internet companies’ control of data gives them enormous power. So they have a “God’s eye view” of activities in their own markets and beyond.

    This nature of data makes the antitrust measures of the past less useful. Breaking up firms like Google into five small ones would not stop remaking themselves: in time, one of them would become great again. A rethink is required — and as a new approach starts to become apparent, two ideas stand out.

    The first is that antitrust authorities need to move form the industrial age into the 21st century. When considering a merger(兼并), for example, they have traditionally used size to determine when to step in. They now need to take into account the extent of firms’ data assets(资产) when assessing the impact of deals. The purchase price could also be a signal that an established company is buying a new-born threat. When this takes place, especially when a new-born company has no revenue to speak of, the regulators should raise red flags.

    The second principle is to loosen the control that providers of on-line services have over data and give more to those who supply them. Companies could be forced to consumers what information they hold and how many money they make form it. Governments could order the sharing of certain kinds of data, with users’ consent.

    Restarting antitrust for the information age will not be easy But if governments don’t wants a data economy by a few giants, they must act soon.

    Who made your T-shirt?” A Geowetown University student raised that question. Pietra Rivoli, a professor of business, wanted to find the answer. A few weeks later, she bought a T-shirt and began to follow its path from Texas cotton form to Chinese factory to charity bin (箱). The result is an interesting new book, The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy.

Following a T-shirt around the world in a way to make her point more interesting, but it also frees Rivoli from the usual arguments over global trade. She goes wherever the T-shirt goes, and there are surprises around every corner. In China, Rivoli shows why a clothing factory, even with its poor conditions, means a step toward a better life for the people who work there. In the colorful used-clothing markets of Tanzania, she realizes this, “it is only in this final stage of life that the T-shirt will meet a real market,” where the price of a shirt changes by the hour and is different by its size and even color. Rivoli’s book is full of memerable people and scenes, like the noise, the bad air and the “muddy-sweet smell of the cotton. ”She says, “Here in the factory, Shanghai smells like Shallowater Texas. ”

Rivoli is at her best when making those sorts of unexpected connections. She even finds one between the free traders and those who are against globalization. The chances opened up by trade are vast, she argues, but free markets need the correcting force of politics to keep them in check. True economic progress needs them both.