In this article, I analyse the Steam platform as a configuration of several market contexts. I argue that Valve, the owner of Steam, maintains a classical retail market catering to large game ...publishers, while the emphasis of Valve’s own game titles is in alternative market contexts based on player-driven economies. I first discuss Steam as a distinct type of platform economy due to its roots in player-driven game economies. I then introduce the notion of ‘markets as fields’ as my analytical framework. Based on this framework, I describe three different contexts of economic transaction: the Steam Game Store, the Steam Community Workshop and the Steam Community Market. I analyse how the approximately 46,500 game titles published on the platform are distributed across these contexts and how these games can be ranked with regard to current player numbers, and discuss Valve’s position as combined platform owner, game developer and game publisher.
This open access book offers a comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective on the unique competition law challenges presented by the converged digital markets. Following the digitalisation of even ...the most traditional bricks-and-mortar sectors of the economy, a well-functioning internal market can only be guaranteed by ensuring the competitiveness of the digital markets. What role do intellectual property law and competition law play in this digital world? How can a more economic analysis strengthen innovation policies to achieve a truly competitive digital single market? The book provides a rigorous discussion of the many reasons why the regulatory responses, not just in Europe but in other jurisdictions too, may fall short. It addresses an array of procedural, substantive and other issues that are generating intense debate across the antitrust community. This includes the scope and objectives of digital regulation, whether the application of ex-ante rules would result in fragmentation and inconsistencies, and whether such regulatory regimes are an appropriate tool for substantive assessment. The book explores whether the application of these rules would effectively tackle the competition enforcement challenges seen under the competition laws, whether they can be applied without undermining other rights such as privacy, and whether they are appropriate for this digital age as well as the new digital era ahead of us. Part 1 offers a detailed inter-disciplinary perspective on the most recent legislative solutions in the European Union, namely, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the Data Act. Part 2 offers competition and regulatory responses to these ever-emerging digital challenges by the UK, Latin American, Indian and Chinese regulators. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
Digital market regulations respond to technological changes and global dynamics, but also to how political actors shape markets. Focusing on the Digital Markets Act, this article explains the EU's ...marketcraft as the result of a struggle in the policy field between political actors promoting competing economic ideas in a rapidly evolving technological and geopolitical context. We show that significant discursive and policy change in digital market governance has occurred because of shifting coalitions between three constellations of actors, which we call market-correctors, market-busters, and market-directors. Tracking the ongoing campaign to challenge Big Tech and define the meaning of digital sovereignty, we argue that market-directors have ushered in potentially comprehensive policy change.
In 2020 the European Commission presented its legislative package aimed to deal with new challenges for the internal market stemming from development on digital mar- kets and alleged abuses and ...anticompetitive practices therein, including the Digital Mar- kets 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 regula- tions, 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 short- comings 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.
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.
Derecho de la competencia vs. privacidad Díez Estella, Fernando; Ribera Martínez, Alba
Cuadernos de derecho transnacional,
03/2022, Volume:
14, Issue:
1
Journal Article
La digitalización de los modelos empresariales existentes y la nueva forma de hacer negocios de las plataformas digitales plantean nuevos retos tanto en la actuación de las empresas en el mercado ...como en la vida de los consumidores y usuarios. Las empresas digitales dominantes son todas estadounidenses (Google, Facebook, Amazon y Apple), y sus prácticas parece que lesionan la libre competencia en los mercados. Este fenómeno plantea el reto de cómo afrontar la regulación del Big Data, al que hasta ahora no se ha dado una respuesta del todo satisfactoria. En este trabajo se analiza también el contenido constitucional de la privacidad y su importancia en el marco de los análisis de competencia realizados a ambos lados del Atlántico.
Security in digital markets Sánchez, Mariola; Urbano, Amparo
Journal of business research,
08/2019, Volume:
101
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
This paper contributes to the literature on security in digital markets. We analyze a two-period monopoly market in which consumers have privacy concerns. We make three assumptions about privacy: ...first, that it evolves over time; second, that it has a value that is unknown by all market participants in the first period; and third, that it may affect market participants' willingness to pay for products. The monopolist receives a noise signal about consumers' average privacy. This signal allows the monopolist to adjust the price in the second period and engage in price discrimination. The monopolist's price in period 2 acts as a signal to consumers about privacy. This signal, together with consumers' purchase experiences from the first period, determines demand. We address two scenarios: direct investment in security to improve consumers' experiences and investment in market signal precision.
•Consumers have imprecise privacy concern, which are updated over time.•Security in digital markets is a firms' asset under consumers' privacy concerns.•The firm makes a direct investment in security or in the market signal precision.•The firm's direct investment improves consumer experience but increases prices.•Investment in the market signal precision manipulates consumers' information.
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.
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.
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.
KEYWORDS: Digital Markets, Competition Law, Data Privacy.
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