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As firms accumulate more data, users' data-sharing decisions may polarize. Some users may share all data, whereas others may share no data, becoming "digital hermits." When users share multidimensional data about themselves with a firm, the firm learns about the correlations between different dimensions of user data. We incorporate this type of learning into a model of a data market in which a firm acquires data from users with privacy concerns. Each user can share no data, only nonsensitive data, or their full data with the firm. As the firm collects more data and becomes better at drawing inferences about a user's privacy-sensitive data from their nonsensitive data, the share of new users who share no data ("digital hermits") grows. This growth of digital hermits occurs even though the firm offers higher compensation for a user's nonsensitive data and a user's full data as its ability to draw inferences improves. At the same time, the share of new users who share their full data also grows. The model thus predicts a polarization of users' data-sharing choices away from nonsensitive data sharing to no sharing and full sharing. Our model suggests that recent privacy policies, which are focused on control of data rather than inferences, may be misplaced. History: Anthony Dukes served as the senior editor. This paper was accepted through the Marketing Science: Frontiers review process. Funding: Partial financial support was received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Grant 435-2023-0492]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrations with EU relevance, depending on their features, may fall under multiple legal regimes. EU/national merger control systems, antitrust rules, the Digital Markets Act, and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation impose (more or less) comprehensive jurisdictional, procedural and substantive requirements on such transactions. The manner in which these legal realms interact is remarkable from several standpoints: concentrations are tested ex-ante or ex-post, for various sorts of effects, using distinct methodologies and substantive tests. The merging parties may also expect that their transactions switch jurisdictions or are assessed in parallel, or subsequently, by different enforcers. The procedural roadmaps and requirements they are confronted with during the assessment processes cover broad ranges and oftentimes require skilful navigation. This contribution discusses the interplay between the merger control, antitrust, DMA and FSR regimes, attempting to assert whether addressing concentrations with EU relevance is based on coherently interacting frameworks. In doing this, the contribution weighs in on whether the EUMR continues to take centre-stage when it comes to the assessment of such concentrations – a role one could reasonably expect a mature piece of EU secondary law is apt to play.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(3), 1077-1103 | European Forum Insight of 8 January 2024 | (Series Information) European Papers (News of dd month yyyy) | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction - II. From German Competition Decision to EU Judgement - II.1. Bundeskartellamt Decision B6-22/16 of 6 February 2019 - II.2. Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 4 July 2023 - III. Comment - III.1. Something new: relations between competition law and data protection - III.2. Something borrowed: Meta v Bundeskartellamt and the European Commission - III.3. Something old: arts 6 and 9 GDPR - IV. Concluding remark. | (Abstract) Meta v Bundeskartellamt is the culmination of an issue years in the making: the relation between data protection and competition. In contention is the Bka’s finding that Meta’s practice of combining personal data across its many services, in addition to data collected through the integration of its services into third-party websites and apps, constitutes a violation of competition law. In this case, the ECJ holds that a competition authority is at liberty to consider GDPR violations as a “vital clue” to a finding of abuse of dominance, provided it first requested the cooperation of the competent data protection authorities. Furthermore, it finds that, apart from consent, no legal bases from the GDPR justify Facebook’s data processing. Through the principle of sincere cooperation, the Court opens the door to further integration of data protection and competition, acknowledging that data collection is at the core of digital market companies’ business models. Although the case is based on German national law, there is reason to believe that the same line of reasoning could also apply to the European Commission, thus expanding its options in digital market oversight. In contrast, the Court’s analysis of the GDPR is not quite as innovative, but still helpfully lists and reaffirms existing law.

This paper examines the use by California's direct market farmers (DMFs) of online sales and marketing during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, from March through December 2020. The pandemic caused market disruptions that accelerated the trend toward market digitalization. This paper reports quantitative findings based on 364 responses to an online survey of DMFs in California and qualitative findings from participant observation and 33 semi-structured interviews with DMFs and technical assistance providers. We found that online sales and marketing tools, such as social media and websites, were important for withstanding economic disruptions associated with the pandemic, and farmers who had an online presence were more likely to increase their sales and profitability during its early onset. However, we also found that many farmers lacked the necessary resources to access these tools and use them effectively, and that technical assistance providers experienced challenges in helping farmers with online technology use. We argue that DMFs need reliable access to the internet, as well as advice, resources, and training to access and benefit from online sales and marketing tools. These resources must be available in languages other than English (e.g., Spanish). Researchinformed programs and policies can help DMFs navigate market digitalization and strengthen their resilience to future economic disruptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Yearbook of Antitrust & Regulatory Studies is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the use by California’s direct market farmers (DMFs) of online sales and market­ing during the early onset of the COVID-19 pan­demic in the United States, from March through December 2020. The pandemic caused market dis­ruptions that accelerated the trend toward market digitalization. This paper reports quantitative find­ings based on 364 responses to an online survey of DMFs in California and qualitative findings from participant observation and 33 semi-structured interviews with DMFs and technical assistance providers. We found that online sales and market­ing tools, such as social media and websites, were important for withstanding economic disruptions associated with the pandemic, and farmers who had an online presence were more likely to increase their sales and profitability during its early onset. However, we also found that many farmers lacked the necessary resources to access these tools and use them effectively, and that technical assistance providers experienced challenges in helping farm­ers with online technology use. We argue that DMFs need reliable access to the internet, as well as advice, resources, and training to access and benefit from online sales and marketing tools. These resources must be available in languages other than English (e.g., Spanish). Research-informed programs and policies can help DMFs navigate market digitalization and strengthen their resilience to future economic disruptions.

Based on the methodology of complex system analysis, the article examines the impact of digital transformation on public services in the context of the experience of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to analyze the constructive processes of transformation of the public administration system with electronic and digital technologies as a key factor in providing public services to the population and business. In the course of the study, methods of system analysis, methods of generalization, classification, system and structural-functional approaches, and others were used. The directions of the digital transformation of the public service provision system in the European Union have been determined: expanding the use of single electronic portals that ensure the establishment of direct connections on matters of public service provision; simplification of the procedure for using information technologies due to the development of mobile means of transmission and its processing; development of a general list of digital products as part of the provision of public services with the possibility of accelerated search for the required product; creation of experimental platforms and pilot areas for the implementation of digital technologies for the provision of public services. The prerequisites for the digital transformation of public services based on platforms are systematized, which is understood as the process of changing the institutional organization of markets under the influence of the spread of modular digital platforms and the application of platform technologies. These prerequisites include the growth of data quality and the specialization of interaction between participants. This makes it possible to consider platforms as centers for the provision of a wide range of digital services and to ensure the effectiveness of the platform implementation process by providing traditional goods with service properties, which are expressed in the involvement of the consumer in the production process and the accounting of his individual requests. Further research on the problems of digitization and digital transformation of socio-economic systems should cover the direction of expanding the use of digital platform services provided by the service integrator and the development of management methods for promising forms of organization of economic activity in the field of public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acknowledging the unbalanced power relationship between online platforms and their complementors, the economic dependence relationship and fear of retaliation may prevent complementors from fighting against economically harmful practices implemented by online dominant platforms. The economic dependence relationship and fear of retaliation are illustrated by past antitrust cases on both sides of the Atlantic. Having set the scene in which complementors might be disincentivised to take up legal actions facing anticompetitive practices, this paper takes the example of two distortions of information practices, implemented by dominant online platforms, that are harmful to both consumers and complementors: dark patterns and ranking biased by fake reviews. Under the angle of consumer empowerment (through direct complaints) and consumer-oriented enforcement (relying on competition law, the UCPD, and the Digital Services Act Package), this paper shows that consumer empowerment and consumer-oriented enforcement of distortion of information practices can produce a positive externality for complementors. Sole claims for damages have the lowest probability of producing a positive externality unless they act as a signal against an obligation non-implemented by an online platform. Injunctions and commitments have the highest probability of producing a positive externality for complementors. However, one of the constraints of this proposal may be the limited detectability of these practices by consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how competition authorities in three jurisdictions—South Africa, Australia, and the United Kingdom—have responded to proposed corporate mergers and acquisitions involving online intermediation platforms that provide automobile marketplaces. The article examines the notified (and ultimately prohibited) MIH eCommerce Holdings acquisition of WeBuyCars in South Africa; the notified (and authorised) Gumtree acquisition of Cox Media in Australia; and, in the UK, the notified (and authorised) eBay acquisition of Motors.co.uk. The author evaluates the competition considerations that came to the fore in each of these three cases and, based on these determinations, the competition authorities’ decisions. The article then highlights some of the complexities that digital online intermediation platforms pose for competition authorities, and some of the possible ways in which the complexities can be managed.

Context: The rapid growth of the Information Economy and the consolidation of the Big Tech Monopoly in Digital Markets have made privacy and data protection a central concern for consumers and regulatory authorities worldwide. The increasing relevance of personal data as both a market asset and a fundamental right has highlighted the need for new regulatory approaches to address these issues. Objective: This article aims to explore how competition regulation can be used as a mechanism to protect privacy and data protection in the digital markets. Method: The research employs a qualitative approach through a critical analysis of relevant literature, including legal documents and reports from regulatory authorities. The analysis is conducted through a perspective that integrates competition regulation and privacy and data protection matters. In addition, its theoretical references are Shoshana Zuboff and Evgeny Morozov, besides other instruments of national and international regulatory law. Conclusions: The study concludes that competition regulation can play a vital role in protecting privacy and data protection in the digital markets. By promoting competition and preventing anti-competitive behavior by dominant players, competition law can help to create an environment where privacy and data protection are prioritized by companies. Additionally, competition policy can complement data protection regulation by providing an additional layer of protection for consumers.

Acknowledging the unbalanced power relationship between online platforms and their complementors, the economic dependence relationship and fear of retaliation may prevent complementors from fighting against economically harmful practices implemented by online dominant platforms. The economic dependence relationship and fear of retaliation are illustrated by past antitrust cases on both sides of the Atlantic. Having set the scene in which complementors might be disincentivised to take up legal actions facing anticompetitive practices, this paper takes the example of two distortions of information practices, implemented by dominant online platforms, that are harmful to both consumers and complementors: dark patterns and ranking biased by fake reviews. Under the angle of consumer empowerment (through direct complaints) and consumer-oriented enforcement (relying on competition law, the UCPD, and the Digital Services Act Package), this paper shows that consumer empowerment and consumer-oriented enforcement of distortion of information practices can produce a positive externality for complementors. Sole claims for damages have the lowest probability of producing a positive externality unless they act as a signal against an obligation non-implemented by an online platform. Injunctions and commitments have the highest probability of producing a positive externality for complementors. However, one of the constraints of this proposal may be the limited detectability of these practices by consumers.

Crowdfunding has reached enormous popularity among entrepreneurs, yet many struggle to fund their projects. For example, only 39.8% of all Kickstarter projects get funded. Why? Entrepreneurs need to set a predefined funding goal, which needs to be reached to get the project funded. If not reached, they do not get the money. To reach the funding goal, entrepreneurs can design reward menus from which backers can choose low-priced to high-priced rewards to support a given project. We show that simply inserting a so-called decoy option—an option in the first place that does not make sense but makes higher-priced options more attractive—can lead to significantly more backers choosing a high-priced option (up to 28% more high-priced choices). This makes it more likely for entrepreneurs to reach their predefined funding goals and thus start their designated projects. At the core of reward-based crowdfunding (RBC) is the reward menu. Carefully constructed reward menus can impact fundraising success significantly. For example, an oft-discussed approach to influencing purchasing decisions is introducing an irrelevant option into a consumer's choice set—a decoy option—making another, often more valuable, option more attractive. This phenomenon is also known as the attraction effect. Prior research, however, has found mixed evidence for its occurrence in applied settings because it has largely employed simplified attribute presentation—with only numeric attributes such as ratings—and hypothetical choices, which had no economic consequences. Hence, researchers questioned the practical significance of the attraction effect. In this paper, we examine whether the attraction effect will manifest in an applied setting such as the crowdfunding context, where product attributes are both numerical (e.g., price) and nonnumerical (e.g., content of a product), choices have economic consequences, and organizations offer several menu options to consumers. We draw upon the salience theory and propose four hypotheses, suggesting that introducing an irrelevant decoy option in choice sets, created digitally in reward menus, may lead backers to choose higher-priced options. We conducted seven online experiments and a field study on Kickstarter (in total, n = 3,998 participants), with increasing levels of similarity with RBC. We found that the attraction effect significantly shifted backers' preferences from a low-priced to a high-priced reward by 18.8% to 28.2% in different settings, highlighting the substantial potential of properly designed digital reward menus to influence funders' choices. Given that researchers have expressed skepticism about the attraction effect in applied settings, our results are particularly significant, suggesting that information systems design can influence choice behavior. This research makes targeted contributions to the literature on crowdfunding, the attraction effect, and digital design. History: Alessandro Acquisti, Senior Editor; David (Jingjun) Xu, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by University of Cologne, Erasmus University, and University of Liechtenstein. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1152. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Latin American Law Review is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The tremendous growth of digitization in recent years has raised again the question of the functionality and necessity of the original structure of copyright protection, the copyright collectives. Especially music markets have transformed to such an extent that earlier arguments in favour of the existence of copyright collectives are questionable. The transition from monopolistic and oligopolistic structures to more individual and competitive market is accelerated by the digital economy forces. Even more, the new organisation of the music market has the potential to establish a new stability. The final product of the transformation will be a simpler and shorter creator-consumer chain that will render the market more flexible and competitive, with lower prices and a greater selection. Digital service providers can efficiently collect fees from various music uses. In such world the role of current form of copyrights and copyright collectives can be considered a part of the problem rather than solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides comprehensive analysis of the evolution of approaches to antimonopoly regulation of digital market participants, the so-called “digital platforms”. So far business practices of digital platforms and their compliance with the antitrust rules have been widely studied by both the watchdogs of various countries and the expert community. However, a few years ago the research into these issues was not that thorough neither in science nor in practice Today, with sufficient experience on regulation of digital markets, legal acts are being drawn up in various jurisdictions that cover approaches to assessing the market position of digital platforms, as well as acceptable and unacceptable practices. Besides, specific control mechanisms are being designed to deter antitrust violations in digital markets. At the same time, digital technologies are evolving too fast. This will inevitably pose new challenges to regulators and science. New digital services, business models and options for expanding markets, for example, by developing ecosystem products, will appear. The paper presents analysis of the main stages in the development of antimonopoly regulation of digital markets: from the first antitrust cases against IT-companies to creation of special regulatory and control mechanisms of digital platforms. Furthermore, potential development of digital markets and their antitrust regulation both in Russia and abroad is considered. The paper offers review of legal acts and regulatory initiatives in the area of digital markets in different regions worldwide and refers to the key antitrust cases that have affected the regulatory approaches.

Copyright of Cuadernos.info is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate, if competition-like efficiencies of European-style rule of reason shall apply also in the context of the ex-ante regulation by the DMA. The rationale of such consideration lies in the concept of proportionality of the EU regulation and the assumption that EU law cannot proscribe behaviour with beneficial outcomes and effects that does not have negative consequences on the internal market outweighing the positive effects. The analysis is divided into three parts in this paper: position of the rule of law and the per se prohibition in the legal development of the EU competition law, the relationship between the DMA and competition law, including competition-based efficiencies brought in digital market cases and finally the per se prohibition included in the DMA. The analysis of the development of the case law showed that in the EU competition law the principle of per se prohibitions was never accepted and the CJEU accepted justifications outside the text of the statutory exemptions. Even though the aim of the DMA may be the introduction of a per se prohibition in order to facilitate the Commission's enforcement, it cannot be surprising if the CJ EU will, in some case in the future, follow the path of the EU-style rule of reason in the framework of the DMA as well on the basis of proportionality principle. The lesson learned from application of rule of reason in the context of agreements restricting competition or as a specific form of objective justification in the context of abuse of dominant position does not undermine effectiveness of competition law. The quasi per se concept can satisfy both: it shows that it is not probable that such a behaviour will be allowed and at the same time it dodges proportionality objections because the prohibition is not, at least theoretically, absolutely, per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term self-preferencing has gained great prominence in the competition and regulation debate involving digital platform markets. However, it has increasingly been used to designate practices with distinct structure, economic rationale, and effects, including in contexts that fall outside of digital markets (even though those conducts already existed in preceding times and were widely scrutinized by competition authorities under the existing legal grounds). In Brazil, the situation is no different. This is due to the lack of a well-established legal test, including definitions about presumptions of illegality and burden of proof, and the attempt to concentrate, under the same “umbrella” diverse and distinct conducts. Following up on debates in international scholarship and, most relevantly, discussions within the European scenario, this article provides initial suggestions for the development of an adequate legal test for the practice of self-preferencing in Brazil. We make a preliminary attempt to differentiate between diverse categories of self-preferencing and suggest, among other aspects, that tests and theories of harm existing in CADE case law should be improved and adapted to drive antitrust analysis for those practices. This is the case, for example, for the classic (or “pure”) pattern of what the scholarship has equated to self-preferencing, being possible to turn to an adaptation of the CADE’s position on the essential facilities doctrine (EFD). We argue the essentiality test should not be completely abandoned, as it stands as a relevant divisor between distinct types of self-preferencing, with relevant enforcement implications, and provide an initial outline of an adapted legal test to assess essentiality.

The paper discusses the role that digital commerce can play in the construction of more sustainable food commercialization circuits that promote, among other aspects, (re)connections, both between spaces and between agents involved in the food system. Faced with the strong commercial concentration exercised by supermarkets and the difficulties for products and agents that promote alternative food systems to access the market, we seek to understand how digital commerce can be mobilized to build more sustainable supply networks and to what extent these networks are able to implement more environmentally and socially responsible principles. We sought to produce a census of digital marketing circuits independent of the large distribution networks in Rio de Janeiro in 2021 and 2022, focusing on those that mobilize principles of sustainability in their communication. After characterizing their organization and the aspects of sustainability they invoke, we conducted semi-structured interviews on initiatives whose main role is to act as a commercial intermediary. The data obtained contributed to the distinction of different profiles of circuits in the city and discuss the potential and limits of digital tools to foster sustainable food systems.

The study examines the recent experiences of South Africa’s competition authorities in engaging with competition matters in the country’s digital markets. Specifically, the authors examine engagements by the Competition Commission South Africa (CCSA), the Competition Tribunal of South Africa, and the Competition Appeal Court (CAC) with three regulatory elements: (1) mergers, examined through the MIH and WeBuyCars and Google and Fitbit cases; (2) abuse of dominance, examined through the GovChat v Facebook case; and (3) cartel conduct, examined through the Competition Commission v Bank of America Merrill Lynch International Limited & Others case. In reviewing the decisions made in these cases, the authors highlight regulatory considerations that are coming to the fore in response to competition matters in digital markets.

The increasing dominance of a small number of 'big tech' companies, across a range of critical online markets, has led to growing calls for regulation to promote more competition, and to ensure that market power is not exploited unfairly. New regulatory regimes to this end are now under development in a variety of jurisdictions. While the new German and EU regulatory regimes are the most advanced, there are detailed proposals under discussion in the UK, US, and China, while in South Korea new regulations have been introduced in relation to the specific area of app stores. This article discusses several questions arising in this context. What problem is pro-competition digital platform regulation trying to solve? Why regulation and not competition law? What are the design challenges involved in developing such regulation? What are the risks arising from diverging regulatory approaches to these global issues and how much these risks be mitigated? And what role can trade policy play? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020 the European Commission presented its legislative package aimed to deal with new challenges for the internal market stemming from development on digital markets and alleged abuses and anticompetitive practices therein, including the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The aim of this paper is not to evaluate content of the DMA itself, but to evaluate the position of the DMA in the context of other market sector-oriented regulations , rules on unfair trade practices, competition rules as well as fitness of legal basis and observance of rule of law safeguards. As the DMA proposal departed from competition law legal basis enshrined in Art. 101 et seq. of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, it paved the way for the possibility to impose sanction under both regimes. This possibility of double sanctions and necessity for check of proportionality in all actions of the Commission as well as in imposition of fines constitute one of the most relevant shortcomings from the "constitutional" point of view of position of the DMA in the EU legal framework. As it is argued in this paper, without more synchronization with competition regulatory regimes, the DMA proposal contains elements that can, at the end of the day, diminish its legal effectiveness via subsequent judicial battles.

Many developed countries rely, to varying degrees, on competition among private health plans to obtain affordable and high-quality health insurance for their residents. Incorporating beneficiary-level competitive bidding into these healthcare systems can better align the incentives of these health plans, increase their willingness to enroll, and serve the sickest and most vulnerable patients while keeping costs manageable. We identify two digitally enabled program designs that allow private insurance plans to competitively bid to enroll individual beneficiaries. Compared with those used in existing entitlement programs, these designs always make a larger share of the beneficiary population profitable to enroll, thereby increasing willingness of the plans to enroll the most costly beneficiaries and improving access to care. On simulating the conditions of existing real-word healthcare entitlement programs, we found that these new designs actually tend to lower the tax burden in up to 83% of simulations. The research findings suggest that these new designs hold great promise in achieving the dual aim of improved access and lower costs. We believe that findings from this research can guide policymakers implement policies that will enroll more beneficiaries and cost the taxpayers less. Healthcare entitlement programs in the United States represent a large and growing financial outlay for taxpayers. In the pursuit of operational efficiencies, program administrators often contract with private managed care organizations (MCOs) to procure insurance for beneficiaries. This, however, encourages MCOs to attract the healthiest beneficiaries and avoid the sickest, a phenomenon known as risk selection. This paper investigates whether risk selection can be mitigated with a mechanism where MCOs bid to enroll each individual beneficiary. Although procurement auctions have been studied extensively in the literature, extant research has rarely discussed individual-level bidding. Digitization can contribute to the development and introduction of efficient market structures and mechanisms for matching beneficiaries with appropriate MCOs. We model demand- and supply-side aspects in a two-sided insurance marketplace to examine three mechanisms, risk adjustment, bidding, and a mix of prospective payment and bidding, with and without reserve prices. Analytical results show that traditional risk adjustment cannot optimally be used to eliminate risk selection, whereas the bidding mechanisms eliminate it entirely. Mixed bidding eliminates risk selection at a strictly lower cost than pure bidding. The proposed mixed bidding approach is a new type of mechanism with preauction offers that strictly dominates the second-price auction without requiring additional assumptions. Numerical analysis shows bidding dominates risk adjustment in 75.1% of simulated parameter sets. Compared with risk adjustment, bidding secures coordinated care for 12.1% more allocated beneficiaries while lowering program costs by 9.2% and largely preserving MCO profits. This would amount to approximately $27.2 billion in Medicaid program savings. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the proposed bidding mechanism dominates in scenarios that closely resemble real-world healthcare entitlement environments. These results show that digital markets that enable individual-level auctions are a promising approach for achieving the dual aim of financial sustainability and expanded access to care for the most vulnerable. History: This paper has been accepted by Ravi Bapna, Martin Bichler, Bob Day, and Wolfgang Ketter, Senior Editors; and Liangfei Qiu, Associate Editor, for the Information Systems Research Special Section on Market Design and Analytics. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2021.1062. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Selcuk Law Review / Selçuk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Selcuk Law Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The EU is taking further steps towards the regulation of the digital space. Following on the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Commission now proposes two new regulation proposals aimed at regulating online markets and create a safer online environment, where the fundamental rights of users are protected: the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. However, it is still up for discussion how these proposals will articulate with GDPR provisions. In this study, we shall discuss the potential impact on data protection rules of the latest EU legislative push and how it intends to balance the new horizontal regulation for digital markets with already existing legislation, in particular on data protection.

Online platforms have emerged as a new kind of regulatory object. In this article, we empirically map the emergence of the field of platform regulation in one country: the United Kingdom (UK). We focus on the 18-month period between September 2018 and February 2020 when an upsurge of regulatory activism reflected increasing sensitivity to national sovereignty in the context of Brexit. Through an empirical–legal content analysis of eight official reports issued by the UK government, parliamentary committees, and regulatory agencies, we code the online harms to which regulation is being asked to respond; identify relevant subject domains of law (such as data protection and privacy, competition, education, media and broadcasting, consumer protection, tax law and financial regulation, intellectual property law, security law); and analyze the agencies referred in the reports for their centrality in the regulatory network and their regulatory powers. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of “field,” we observe the emergence of regulators with investigatory and enforcement powers that stand in mutually unstable power relations to each other as well as vis-à-vis shifting executive and legislative interventions. Online platforms appear to acquire authority to exercise state powers.

Nowadays equity crowdfunding plays an important role in the entrepreneurial finance markets. To better understand the functioning of the industry, it is important to consider the entire equity crowdfunding process and all the actors involved. Equity crowdfunding platforms match indeed the demand of capital from entrepreneurial ventures with the supply of capital by investors. This manuscript is a first step in this direction, by (1) comparing equity crowdfunding with traditional sources of entrepreneurial finance; (2) discussing the potential and the perils of equity crowdfunding for inclusivity and democratization; (3) highlighting the role of visual information in digital finance; and (4) providing first insights on the industrial dynamics in equity crowdfunding. The paper gives researchers and practitioners orientation about recent developments in equity crowdfunding literature and provides relevant research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Yearbook of Antitrust & Regulatory Studies is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Big Data technologies have significantly increased the possibility for sellers to adopt personalisation strategies, especially in digital markets. Among such strategies, price discrimination, a practice where the same commodity is sold at different prices, either to the same customer or to different customers, stands out. Particularly, the online airline ticket market has risen the attention of economists in recent studies, both because of its specificity and of the high data availability. This manuscript enters the debate and analyses the airline ticket market in an original way. Indeed, the aim of this work is to empirically understand whether some airline companies discriminate in prices by using the customers’ data that they collect from their websites, and, if so, which is the impact on social welfare. For performing this assessment, a software that is able to automatically collect pricing data is developed and freely released. By executing the software in two time periods, tickets prices of three airlines, three itineraries, and four different user profiles are acquired. A double analysis is performed to check if customers’ information are used to discriminate (intra-user), and if different prices are offered to distinct user profiles (inter-user). Moreover, the analyses consider control data collected from the API of the Global Distribution System Amadeus, the main flight booking platform dedicated to travel agents. Upon inspection, no evidence is found in this study to support the hypothesis that airlines use price discrimination techniques.

The digital economy and multi-faceted markets have significantly contributed to the efficacy of most transactions governing modern humankind. Digital platforms have become an irreplaceable cross-border asset that has acclimatized with technological advancements. However, there is obscurity in the methods of accommodation of digital economy in competition laws of most jurisdictions globally. Consequently, there are ascertainable issues in competition laws of such jurisdictions. Such issues remain unaddressed due to the absence of evaluation parameters of digital platforms in the conventional market system and culminate into an Implicit and undetected abuse of dominance. This study used the doctrinal method by highlighting the distinctness of contemporary digital markets and their consequential issues. This study explicated the issues in the competition that need to be independently addressed, considering the intricacies of digital platforms. The presence of non-price factors, multi-faceted markets, and data-driven networks being the primary source of such novel issues have been particularly explicated. The established premise was substantiated by way of case studies of major events involving factors such as predation, deep discounting, and data privacy. Elucidation of the competition system in most jurisdictions in Asia and the accommodation of digital platforms in the same was also sufficiently enunciated to present a holistic insight to the established premise. Finally, the authors suggested ways to sufficiently address the issues arising from the distinctness of digital platforms, thereby giving rise to a dynamic and all-inclusive competition.

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between reverse globalization, the digital markets, and competition policy within the EU. Based on the review of contemporary literature, this paper provides an insight into the EU adaptation to the changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reverse globalization is identified through the trends in the international trade and FDI flows, while the digital markets' development is evaluated through the Number of individuals using the Internet to order goods and services and ECommerce sales. While this paper uses secondary data sources, it uniquely connects the identified reverse globalization and digital markets expansion with necessary changes in the competition policy pre and during the COVID19 pandemic. Additionally, this paper provides policymakers and business owners with relevant information and possible avenues to improve the competition policy and business strategy.

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The article includes a comprehensive analysis of changes that have been taking place in Russian antitrust enforcement in response to the digitalization of the economy. Digitalization has led to increase of the role of information and digital platforms in day-to-day business activities of the market players. Digitalization vanished geographical boundaries of the digital markets and modified market structures in general. Innovative technologies, big data, and intellectual property have become the key drivers of economic growth. The authors analyze new violations of antimonopoly legislation in the digital era (in particular collusive tendering using auction robots), the anticompetitive effects resulting from the use of pricing algorithms, and the first approaches of the antitrust authority to regulations of the algorithmic pricing. In addition, within the framework of this article, the first legal positions of the antitrust authority regarding the use of pricing algorithms, as well as the new approaches of the regulator to the analysis of digital markets in merger control are considered, taking into account such factors as network effects, big data and technologies. Moreover, the authors analyze the first practice of using the technology transfer as a remedy in merger control by the antitrust authority to mitigate anti-competitive effects of the transactions planned in the Russian market. Finally, the authors conduct an overview of the new legal provisions governing the mandatory pre-installation of applications by Russian developers, and also describe the background for this initiative. When considering the above topics, the authors deeply analyze the relevant Russian and foreign legislation, draft laws, and the law enforcement practice of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. New approaches of the regulator to the analysis of digital markets in the framework of antitrust investigations and merger control, as well as automation of the processes of detecting antitrust violations, demand more attention from market players. Companies are encouraged to take these trends into account in their business activities, reflect them in antitrust compliance programs, as well as implement additional measures to prevent potential antitrust violations in digital markets, in particular, committed with the use of pricing algorithms.

This paper discusses time as a form of regulating social life that integrates culturally and historically variable social imaginaries manifested within various economic, political and cultural spheres. While the ‘cyclical time’ of the archaic societies is based on a social imaginary of nature, the ‘linear time’ that marked the transition from the medieval to the modern culture follows a social imaginary of Newtonian mechanics. Time as a “commodity” that characterizes the Taylorist mode of production stands on a social imaginary of efficiency, predictability and controllability. These three notions have taken on new meanings under the imperatives of a digital economy, hence the algorithmic ideology that characterizes surveillance capitalism operates on a social imaginary of ‘time capital’. The new markets and business models of the digitally-mediated economy rely on a recursive and iterative logic through which ‘time capital’ is both converted to and from other forms of capital (social, cultural, financial) and operated on technically-induced processes of acceleration and deceleration.

Bargaining is an important pricing mechanism, prevalent in both online and offline markets. However, there is little empirical work documenting the costs and benefits of bargaining, primarily because of the lack of real-world bargaining data. We leverage rich, transaction-level bargaining data from a major online platform and supplement it with primary data to quantify the costs and benefits of bargaining for sellers, buyers, and the platform. We do this by building a structural model of buyer demand and seller pricing decisions while allowing for the existence of bargaining initiation cost, loss-of-face cost, and price discrimination. Using our results, we perform three policy simulations to quantify the importance of not distinguishing between no-bargain and failed-bargain transactions, ignoring the loss-of-face cost, and not allowing for bargaining. These simulations provide rich details on how the various costs of bargaining impact our understanding of buyer and seller behavior and transaction outcomes. Banning bargaining, in particular, benefits the buyer and the platform greatly but only has a modest benefit for sellers. Finally, we show that our results are robust to our assumptions and replicate in another product category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed review of evaluation standards for the legal assessment of tying. This practice, which constitutes an abuse of a dominant position, is a significant breach of competition law. The mechanism of this type of abuse is based on taking advantage of market power in the supply of one product to create packed offerings capable of precluding competition from superior rival solutions. Tying occurs when one product, the “tying product”, is sold only with another product, the “tied product”. In the prevailing number of cases, tying serves to consolidate the company’s dominant position on the tied product market, which usually aims to share the tying product’s large customer group with the less-desired product. However, tying is not illegal per se. In many cases, it does not lead to any anti-competitive concerns, and might be beneficial for consumers. This is why each assessment of this conduct must be carefully evaluated with special attention given to the effects, in accordance with the generally applied effect-based approach, and also potential efficiencies. An analysis of the case-law and literature reveals the basic mechanisms for conducting a legal assessment of tying. However, the use of these mechanisms will not be possible without their adaptation to the ongoing changes caused by technological development. Digital markets not only generate incremental revenues, but are also the sources of new or unusual legal arrangements. It will more frequently be the case that existing provisions will not be able to address every new practice accurately without new acts. The Digital Markets Act aims to adapt the existing legal framework to contemporary market realities and to become a modern tool for enforcing competition law rules on digital markets. The European Commission is seeking to broaden its powers to intervene at the earliest possible stage, before an undertaking affects the competition on a market.

Big Data technologies have significantly increased the possibility for sellers to adopt personalisation strategies, especially in digital markets. Among such strategies, price discrimination, a practice where the same commodity is sold at different prices, either to the same customer or to different customers, stands out. Particularly, the online airline ticket market has risen the attention of economists in recent studies, both because of its specificity and of the high data availability. This manuscript enters the debate and analyses the airline ticket market in an original way. Indeed, the aim of this work is to empirically understand whether some airline companies discriminate in prices by using the customers' data that they collect from their websites, and, if so, which is the impact on social welfare. For performing this assessment, a software that is able to automatically collect pricing data is developed and freely released. By executing the software in two time periods, tickets prices of three airlines, three itineraries, and four different user profiles are acquired. A double analysis is performed to check if customers' information are used to discriminate (intra-user), and if different prices are offered to distinct user profiles (inter-user). Moreover, the analyses consider control data collected from the API of the Global Distribution System Amadeus, the main flight booking platform dedicated to travel agents. Upon inspection, no evidence is found in this study to support the hypothesis that airlines use price discrimination techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed review of evaluation standards for the legal assessment of tying. This practice, which constitutes an abuse of a dominant position, is a significant breach of competition law. The mechanism of this type of abuse is based on taking advantage of market power in the supply of one product to create packed offerings capable of precluding competition from superior rival solutions. Tying occurs when one product, the "tying product", is sold only with another product, the "tied product". In the prevailing number of cases, tying serves to consolidate the company's dominant position on the tied product market, which usually aims to share the tying product's large customer group with the less-desired product. However, tying is not illegal per se. In many cases, it does not lead to any anti-competitive concerns, and might be beneficial for consumers. This is why each assessment of this conduct must be carefully evaluated with special attention given to the effects, in accordance with the generally applied effect-based approach, and also potential efficiencies. An analysis of the case-law and literature reveals the basic mechanisms for conducting a legal assessment of tying. However, the use of these mechanisms will not be possible without their adaptation to the ongoing changes caused by technological development. Digital markets not only generate incremental revenues, but are also the sources of new or unusual legal arrangements. It will more frequently be the case that existing provisions will not be able to address every new practice accurately without new acts. The Digital Markets Act aims to adapt the existing legal framework to contemporary market realities and to become a modern tool for enforcing competition law rules on digital markets. The European Commission is seeking to broaden its powers to intervene at the earliest possible stage, before an undertaking affects the competition on a market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to present an insight into the challenges raised by digitalized and data-driven markets to competition policy and enforcement in the Big Data era. Focusing on the assessment of information exchange in the digitalized environment, traditional risk factors are analyized and it is argued that new risk factors can be identified. The paper provides an overview of relevant recent Hungarian case-law to examine the role of information exchange, taking place in a data environment that offers an increased amount of up-to-date and relevant market information for analysis. Further, the paper summarizes the enforcement responses to the demand-side challenges raised by online platforms, user interfaces applying new approaches and practices that can directly influence consumer behavior. The consequence is drawn that the extended economic and IT-related argumentation may affect the nature of proceedings and some new phenomena, as the role of secondary intermediaries, integration of online and offline market segments open new fields for assessment

While the application of the abuse of dominant position struggles to face some exclusionary and exploitative abuses in digital markets, new tools and remedies are being explored within the EU multi-level context to address the abusive behaviours towards economically dependent businesses. This article discusses whether the doctrine of abuse of economic dependence may constitute a flexible remedy to complement the application of the abuse of dominant position and face the increasing economic dependence and imbalance of bargaining power in digital markets. Although not harmonised at EU level, this tool has been enhanced in national realms to tackle some abusive conducts in digital markets, such as the refusal to share datasets, the sudden interruption of commercial relationships, and the imposition of unfair conditions for the use of online intermediation services. Starting from a comparative analysis of some recent national applications of this tool in digital markets, the article questions whether an EU doctrine of abuse of economic dependence in digital markets may represent a feasible option, at the same time avoiding the risk of interpretative fragmentation among Member States. The article then compares different ex ante regulatory options proposed at the EU level to tackle (among others) the problems arising from the “dependence” of businesses on large online platforms, followed by a discussion on the possible role of the abuse of economic dependence among the spectrum of different ex ante and ex post EU remedies and tools for behaviours of abuse of economic power in digital markets.