On 16 December 2020, the European Commission delivered on the plans proposed in the European Digital Strategy by publishing two proposals related to the governance of digital services in the European ...Union: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The much-awaited regulatory reform is often mentioned in the context of content moderation and freedom of expression, market power and competition. It is, however, important to bear in mind the contractual nature of the relationship between users and platforms and the additional contracts concluded on the platform between the users, in particular traders and consumers. Moreover, the monetisation offered by digital platforms has led to new dynamics and economic interests. This paper explores the reform proposed by the European Commission by means of the DSA by touching upon four main themes that will be addressed from the perspective of consumer protection: (1) the internal coherence of European Union law; (2) intermediary liability; (3) the outsourcing of solutions to private parties; and (4) digital enforcement.
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.
Recently, two EU instruments relating to business-to-consumer (B2C) relationships have been adopted: a new consumer sales directive and a directive on the supply of digital content. Three further EU ...instruments are in the pipeline: the so-called Omnibus Directive and a directive on collective redress together known as the ‘New Deal for Consumer’, and a Platform-to-Business regulation (P2B). This editorial aims to give a brief overview and a prima facie evaluation of the content of these instruments and to invite contributions offering a more in-depth analysis of the new rules and their expected impact.
In digital markets, concentrated Big Data and analytical algorithms enable undertakings to predict each consumer’s willingness to pay with increasing accuracy and offer consumers personalized ...recommendations and tailored prices accordingly. In this context, concerns have arisen about whether and when AI-enabled price discrimination amounts to an abuse of dominance under competition law and would require a legal response. To address these concerns, this paper will analyze AI-enabled price discrimination from a comparative law and economics perspective. In economics, price discrimination is not always undesirable as it can increase static efficiency, and, on some occasions, it can promote dynamic efficiency and boost consumer welfare. Nevertheless, it may also lead to exclusionary and exploitative effects, especially once Tech Giants abuse their dominant positions in relevant markets. Since the protection of free competition and consumer welfare are objectives of competition law in China and the EU, competition law seems a proper instrument to step into digital markets to address these concerns. Indeed, the EU and China have established mixed regimes of competition law and other rules to tackle unfair and/or anti-competitive AI-enabled price discrimination. As such, AI-enabled price discrimination does not always require a competition law response and it requires competition authorities to make a trade-off between different considerations.
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