Algorithms and fairness:What role for competition law in targeting price discrimination towards end consumers

While algorithms bring about benefits for consumers in the form of more efficient price setting, they have also resulted in concerns about possible adverse effects, including discrimination. This Article takes a competition law perspective to analyze a type of discrimination that the use of algorithms may facilitate, namely personalized pricing. This is a form of price discrimination between consumers whereby a firm charges each consumer a different price depending on willingness to pay. As the advent of data analytics and algorithm-based services has made it easier for firms to engage in price discrimination, a clarification of the latter’s legality under competition law is welcome. As such, this Article discusses the extent to which competition enforcement can be desirable for targeting price discrimination towards end consumers. In this regard, the interaction with other regimes such as data protection, consumer protection, and antidiscrimination law, is also considered

Digital Single Market strategy shouldn’t go ‘over the top’ with regard to future regulation of OTT services

Last week, a draft of the European Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy and evidence file were leaked and obtained by Politico. Inge Graef, who researches the intersection between personal data and competition law on online media platforms at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT at KU Leuven, looks at the implications of the leaked document for ‘over-the-top’ players

European Commission approves Facebook/WhatsApp deal: data concentration and privacy as competition concerns?

Inge Graef, an expert on the intersection between personal data and competition law on online media platforms from KU Leuven, looks at the Facebook/WhatsApp acquisition and argues that the European Commission should have examined the impact data concentration can have on attracting and retaining users and privacy as a means of competition between competing services

The opportunities and limits of data portability for stimulating competition and innovation

Data portability has a hybrid nature. What emerged as a data protection concept is now also becoming part of policies aiming to stimulate competition and innovation. To reap the full benefits of data portability, this article argues that there is a need for regulators to steer its implementation and to provide guidance on how data controllers should handle tensions between different interests and overlapping legal entitlements. Data portability can empower individuals and business users to make better choices but more asymmetric enforcement is needed to ensure that data portability will stimulate competition. And as a tool to promote data-driven innovation, data portability is a necessary but probably not a sufficient condition to keep data-driven markets open to newcomers

Consumer protection & competition policy:An overview of EU and national case law

This contribution explores how the role of consumer protection evolved in selected areas of EU and national competition law in the past years from two perspectives: (1) consumers as the object of protection in competition cases and (2) consumers as the benchmark for assessing anticompetitive effects. While the first issue concerns the position of consumers as beneficiaries of the competition rules, the second issue refers to the range of consumers that is considered for establishing whether anticompetitive effects and thus a competition violation exist

Paving the way forward for data governance:A story of checks and balances

Data governance is a phenomenon that brings many interests and considerations together. This editorial argues that active involvement of various stakeholders is vital to advance discussions about how to create value from data as a means to stimulate societal progress. Without adequate checks and balances, each stakeholder group on its own will not have sufficient incentives to do its utmost to achieve this common goal. Policymakers and regulators need to be stimulated to look beyond short-term results to ensure that the design of their initiatives is fit for purpose. Industry players have to be transparent about their practices to prevent strategic behaviour that may harm society. And researchers must inform their findings with real-world evidence and proper terminology

Future-proofing plural antitrust enforcement models:Lessons from the United States and the European Union

The paper illustrates how the EU and U.S. antitrust systems are coming closer to each other in their extent of federalism or decentralization. It explores how plural antitrust enforcement models can be made future-proof, also considering the involvement of courts and legislators as evaluators in antitrust matters. The paper’s insights focus on considerations that are relevant in balancing experimentation and consistency. The starting point is that some extent of federalism or decentralization is welcome to allow for learning by doing when antitrust authorities reach different outcomes. The paper argues that stronger coordination among the different actors in the EU and U.S. antitrust systems is needed to make the learning more structural and to ensure effective enforcement. Insights from experimentalist governance are used to propose ex ante and ex post coordination mechanisms to achieve this

Data Portability Series: Interview with Ian Brown

In the context of the Brussels Internet & Telecom Seminar on data portability coming up on April 29, Inge Graef and Yuli Wahyuningtyas of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI – iMinds) of the KU Leuven – University of Leuven, interviewed internet governance expert Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute about the new right to data portability and its implications for the online social network industry

Governance of Data Sharing:A Law & Economics Proposal

To prevent market tipping, which inhibits innovation, there is an urgent need to mandate sharing of user information in data-driven markets. Existing legal mechanisms to impose data sharing under EU competition law and data portability under the GDPR are not sufficient to tackle this problem. Mandated data sharing requires the design of a governance structure that combines elements of economically efficient centralization with legally necessary decentralization. We identify three feasible options. One is to centralize investigations and enforcement in a European Data Sharing Agency (EDSA), while decision-making power lies with National Competition Authorities in a Board of Supervisors. The second option is to set up a Data Sharing Cooperation Network coordinated through a European Data Sharing Board, with the National Competition Authority best placed to run the investigation adjudicating and enforcing the mandatory data-sharing decision across the EU. A third option is to mix both governance structures and to task national authorities to investigate and adjudicate and the EU-level EDSA with enforcement of data sharing