{"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","dataset":"reports","count":1,"filters":{"report":"digital-gateways-brief","reportMatched":true,"reportId":"rep-digital-gateways","reportSlug":"digital-gateways-brief","reportTitle":"Five Digital Gateways"},"rows":[{"id":"rep-digital-gateways","slug":"digital-gateways-brief","title":"Five Digital Gateways","subtitle":"U.S. platform concentration across five separately bounded usage systems","summary":"A source-backed research brief tracing search, browser, mobile operating-system, social-referral, and AI-assistant concentration without collapsing them into one platform market or ecosystem score.","body":"U.S. digital-platform activity is not one market. This report tracks five separately bounded public systems: search referrals, browser page views, mobile operating-system page views, social-media referrals, and AI-assistant usage. At the latest published anchor, search usage reports HHI 7,359; browser page views 3,612; mobile operating-system page views 5,337; social referrals 4,995; and AI assistants 4,804. Those values share an HHI formula but not a denominator, participant universe, month, or legal meaning, so the report never averages or ranks them into a platform-power score. Four systems publish April 2023-April 2026 histories. Search HHI changed by -591 points, browsers by -52, mobile operating systems by +180, and social referrals by +1,602; AI assistants currently provide one May 2026 baseline. Official product-attribution records place Google-labeled products across five systems, Microsoft-labeled products across three, and Apple-labeled products across two. That recurrence is a research route into distribution, defaults, interoperability, multihoming, and switching, not a combined share or control conclusion. Stronger public evidence would add revenue, default-placement, installed-base, unique-user, engagement, enterprise and API usage, compute-access, and remedy-outcome measures while keeping every denominator explicit.","coverImageUrl":"/generated-assets/report-cover-concentration.png","publishedAt":"2026-07-20","relatedMarketIds":["mkt-search","mkt-browser","mkt-mobile-os","mkt-social-referral","mkt-ai-chatbot"],"sourceIds":["statcounter-search-us-2026","statcounter-browser-us-2026","statcounter-mobile-os-us-2026","statcounter-social-referral-us-2026","statcounter-ai-chatbot-us-2026"],"sourceBasis":"Five StatCounter U.S. public usage-share sources: April 2023-April 2026 search, browser, mobile operating-system, and social-referral anchors, plus the May 2026 AI-assistant baseline. Official product-attribution records remain a separate evidence layer.","tableOfContents":["Executive findings","Five-system evidence","Operator recurrence","Public evidence agenda","Methodology and limits"],"preview":"Five system histories, exact share rows, official product-attribution paths, and a public research agenda with every denominator kept separate.","publicationType":"research_brief","seriesTitle":"Competition Research Briefs","seriesNumber":"AR-RB-2026-02","authorName":"Antitrust Radar Research Team","version":"1.0","updatedAt":"2026-07-20","publicationStatus":"current","revisionNote":"Initial public edition.","canonicalCitation":"Antitrust Radar Research Team. (2026, July 20). Five Digital Gateways: U.S. platform concentration across five separately bounded usage systems. Competition Research Briefs, AR-RB-2026-02 (Version 1.0). Antitrust Radar. https://antitrustradar.org/reports/digital-gateways-brief","citationDownloads":{"bibtex":"/reports/digital-gateways-brief/citation/bibtex","ris":"/reports/digital-gateways-brief/citation/ris"},"sourceProfileHrefs":["/sources/statcounter-search-us-2026","/sources/statcounter-browser-us-2026","/sources/statcounter-mobile-os-us-2026","/sources/statcounter-social-referral-us-2026","/sources/statcounter-ai-chatbot-us-2026"]}]}