Question
In a recent speech, the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager made the following statement:
‘It is maybe worth looking back at the infancy of the Internet, in the late 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. At the time, the World Wide Web was a free but chaotic place. Varied sorts of information were in principle available to anyone, but hard to find. We did not have today’s online platforms to organise and disseminate content. When looking for a hotel, a book or a flight, there were no online marketplaces that selected and presented us with the most relevant options. This radically changed with the emergence of the large platforms in the late 1990s. A few strong players emerged and started organising the internet for what would soon become millions of users around the world.
For the first time, the platforms acted as global “match-makers” between anybody selling or offering products, services, content or information, and somebody looking for it. In the span of a few years, consumers had access to a wide range of relevant, quick and easy-to-find options. With this ever- growing match-making between the two sides of the market came power, and control. Thanks to the data they collect, platforms are able to decide which product – or information – is offered to whom, when and where.
No matter what they sell, the same operational logic applies: they create clusters of people that will likely react similarly, whether that is by buying a product or clicking on an ad.’ Speech by Margrethe Vestager “Democratic values in a digitalised world” – Humboldt Lectures About Europe, 25 October 2021
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/vestager/announcements/speech-evp-margrethe-vestager-humboldt-lectures-about-europe-democratic-values-digitalised-world_en
Critically discuss this statement by addressing the following points:
• What are the benefits that the emergence of digital platforms brought about? Which are the specific challenges that the business model and rise to power of digital platforms pose to competition law and policy?
• Reflecting on recent cases involving digital platforms, how did the existing competition rules fare in addressing the new challenges posed by the market power of digital platforms? Which weaknesses in the substantive rules and enforcement of competition law did they reveal?
• What are the risks and benefits of stricter competition rules for digital platforms as they are currently discussed at the EU and UK level?
Support your arguments with concrete examples from Article 101 TFEU/Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998, and/or 102 TFEU/Chapter II of the Competition Act 1998, and/or EU/UK merger control, and/or the recent proposals of the ‘Digital Markets Act’ and/or ‘A new pro-competition regime for digital markets’.
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