Der Autor untersucht interdisziplinär, inwieweit Art. 102 AEUV geeignet ist, den Wettbewerb vor dem missbräuchlichen Verhalten marktbeherrschender Plattformen zu schützen. Nach einer ersten Erörterung der Grundlagen der digitalen Wirtschaft, insbesondere Big Data und mehrseitige Plattformen, werden die relevanten Konzepte, die von EU-Kommission und EU-Gerichten in ihrer Entscheidungspraxis zur Auslegung von Art. 102 AEUV entwickelt wurden, näher beleuchtet, um ihre Eignung für das Missbrauchsverbot mit Blick auf Plattformbetreiber vor dem Hintergrund der Besonderheiten mehrseitiger Märkte zu bewerten. Auch das Vorhandensein und die Abgrenzung eines Datenmarktes werden diskutiert.
The first text to provide understanding of the important new issue of Big Data and how it relates to competition laws and policy, both in the EU and US.
The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.
Recent studies on competition law and digital markets reveal that accumulating personal information through data collection and acquisition methods benefits consumers considerably. Free of charge, fast and personalised services and products are offered to consumers online. Collected data is now an indispensable part of online businesses to the point that a new economy, a data-driven sector, has emerged. Many markets such as the social network, search engine, online advertising and e-commerce are regarded as data-driven markets in which the utilisation of Big Data is a requisite for the success of operations. However, the accumulation and use of data brings competition law concerns as they contribute to market power in the online world, resulting in a few technology giants gaining unprecedented market power due to the Big Data accumulation, indirect network effects and the creation of online ecosystems. As technology giants have billions of consumers worldwide, data-driven markets are truly global. In these data-driven markets, technology giants abuse their dominant positions, but existing competition law tools seem ineffective in addressing market power and assessing abusive behaviour related to Big Data. This book argues that a novel approach to the data-driven sector must be developed through the application of competition law rules to address this. It argues that current and potential conflicts can be mitigated by extending the competition law assessment beyond the current competition law tools to offer a modernised and unified approach to the Big Data–related competition issues. Promoting new legal tests for addressing the market power of technology giants and assessing abusive behaviour in data-driven markets, this book advocates for cooperation between competition and data protection authorities. It will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners with an interest in competition law and data protection.
Controversy shrouds sharing economy platforms. It stems partially from the platforms’ economic impact, which is felt most acutely in certain sectors: Uber drivers compete with taxi drivers; Airbnb hosts compete with hotels. Other consequences lie elsewhere: Uber is associated with a trend toward low-paying, precarious work, whereas Airbnb is accused of exacerbating real estate speculation and raising the cost of long-term rental housing. While governments in some jurisdictions have attempted to rein in the platforms, technology has enabled such companies to bypass conventional regulatory categories, generating accusations of “unfair competition” as well as debates about the merits of existing regulatory regimes. Indeed, the platforms blur a number of familiar distinctions, including personal versus commercial activity; infrastructure versus content; contractual autonomy versus hierarchical control. These ambiguities can stymie legal regimes that rely on these distinctions as organizing principles, including those relating to labour, competition, tax, insurance, information, the prohibition of discrimination, as well as specialized sectoral regulation. This book is organized around five themes: technologies of regulation; regulating technology; the sites of regulation (local to global); regulating markets; and regulating labour. Together, the chapters offer a rich variety of insights on the regulation of the sharing economy, both in terms of the traditional areas of law they bring to bear, and the theoretical perspectives that inform their analysis. Published in English.
“A reference book in this area of EU competition law and a must-have companion for academics, enforcers and practitioners alike, as well as EU and national judges.” Judge Nils Wahl, Court of Justice of the European Union This seminal text offers an authoritative and integrated treatment of the legal and economic principles that underpin the application of Article 102 TFEU to the behaviour of dominant firms. Traditional concerns of monopoly behaviour, such as predatory pricing, refusals to deal, excessive pricing, tying and bundling, discount practices and unlawful discrimination are treated in detail through a review of the applicable economic principles, the case law and decisional practice and more recent economic and legal writings. In addition, the major constituent elements of Article 102 TFEU, such as market definition, dominance, effect on trade and applicable remedies are considered at length. The third edition involves a net addition of over 250 pages, with a substantial new chapter on Abuses In Digital Platforms, an extensively revised chapter on standards, and virtually all chapters incorporating substantial revisions reflecting key cases such as Intel, MEO, Google Android, Google Shopping, AdSense, and Qualcomm.
A comprehensive analysis of merger outcomes based on all empirical studies, with an assessment of the effectiveness of antitrust policy toward mergers. In recent decades, antitrust investigations and cases targeting mergers—including those involving Google, Ticketmaster, and much of the domestic airline industry—have reshaped industries and changed business practices profoundly. And yet there has been a relative dearth of detailed evaluations of the effects of mergers and the effectiveness of merger policy. In this book, John Kwoka, a noted authority on industrial organization, examines all reliable empirical studies of the effect of specific mergers and develops entirely new information about the policies and remedies of antitrust agencies regarding these mergers. Combined with data on outcomes, this policy information enables analysis of, and creates new insights into, mergers, merger policies, and the effectiveness of remedies in preventing anticompetitive outcomes. After an overview of mergers, merger policy, and a common approach to merger analysis, Kwoka offers a detailed analysis of the studied mergers, relevant policies, and chosen remedies. Kwoka finds, first and foremost, that most of the studied mergers resulted in competitive harm, usually in the form of higher product prices but also with respect to various non-price outcomes. Other important findings include the fact that joint ventures and code sharing arrangements do not result in such harm and that policies intended to remedy mergers—especially conduct remedies—are not generally effective in restraining price increases. The book's uniquely comprehensive analysis advances our understanding of merger decisions and policies, suggests policy improvements for competition agencies and remedies, and points the way to future research.
Blockchain has become attractive to companies and governments because it promises to solve the age-old problem of mutability in transactions - that is, it makes falsification and recalculation impossible once a transaction has been committed to the technology. However, the perceived complexity of implementing Blockchain calls for an in-depth overview of its key features and functionalities, specifically in a legal context. The systematic and comprehensive approach set forth in this indispensable book, including coverage of existing relevant law in various jurisdictions and practical guidance on how to tackle legal issues raised by the use of Blockchain, ensures a one-stop-shop reference book for anyone considering Blockchain-based solutions or rendering advice with respect to them. Within a clear structure by fields of law allowing for a systematic approach, each contributor - all of them are practitioners experienced with Blockchain projects within their respective areas of expertise - elucidates the implications of Blockchain technology and related legal issues under such headings as the following: technical explanation of Blockchain technology; contract law; regulatory issues and existing regulation in a variety of jurisdictions; data protection and privacy; capital markets; information security; patents and other intellectual property considerations; and antitrust law. Keeping the legal questions and concepts sufficiently generic so that lawyers can benefit from the handbook irrespective of their jurisdiction and legal background, the authors cover such specific characteristics of Blockchain implementation as so-called smart contracts, tokenization, distributed ledger technology, digital securities, recognition of code as law, data privacy challenges and Blockchain joint ventures. Because Blockchain is a relatively new technology still in process and raises a multitude of legal questions, this well-balanced introduction - at a depth that allows non-IT experts to understand the groundwork for legal assessments - provides a solid basis for organizations and their legal advisors in identifying and resolving Blockchain-related issues. Legal practitioners, in-house lawyers, IT professionals and advisors, consultancy firms, Blockchain associations and legal scholars will welcome this highly informative and practical book.
This study provides recommendations on how to make personal data portability more effective. This will truly empower consumers to use the services they want and share their data with whoever they wish and stimulate innovation in Europe. With the entry into force of the GDPR, European citizens gained new rights, notably with data portability. But two years later, there is still little sign of people exercising this right, and of companies offering an easy and convenient service for data portability. While the European Commission is finalising its evaluation of the GDPR and closes its consultation on the European data strategy, the authors, professors Jan Krämer, Pierre Senellart and Alexandre de Streel*, warn that the current legal framework requires clarifications to better empower European citizens in a data-driven society. In this study, they identify barriers to data portability, including the lack of possibilities to import data as well as the lack of common standards and tools to access data as easy as the click of a button. The ability to provide users with a centralised dashboard for monitoring and controlling the flow of their data is also critically missing. “Today, consumers do not widely use data portability for reasons that can and should be overcome. Making data portability more effective is better for competition, for innovation and to empower users,” stress the authors. “There should be no second-guessing on whether to make data portability more effective, the time to act is now.” The current EU framework encourages data portability, but there are legal gaps that the EU should fill. The authors insist on the need for detailed guidance on how data portability can be facilitated and on which data is subject to data portability without violating privacy rights. They advocate that data provided by users when using a service, such as search history (i.e. “observed data”) should clearly be included under the scope of data portability. The authors consider it essential that the obligation to offer standardised Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) be much more widespread to enable consumers to continuously port their data. “We believe that standardised APIs that enable continuous data portability is a prerequisite for encouraging more organisations to import personal data, and for encouraging more consumers to initiate such transfers,” explain the authors. Projects, such as the Data Transfer Project have highlighted that continuous data portability is technically feasible. The authors argue that Personal Management Information Systems (PIMSs) facilitate the complex consent management and offer users a centralised dashboard for monitoring and controlling the flow of their data will have a crucial role to play for the wider adoption of data portability. “It must be as easy as clicking a button for consumers to continuously share data they created with one provider to another provider. This may also require educating and informing users on their rights through information campaigns alongside clear policy measures,” explain the authors. Nevertheless, they stress that PIMSs are not likely to find a sustainable business model, and thus, policy makers should support the emergence of open-source projects by setting common standards for data transfers, consent management, and identity management.
This book analyses the legal approach to personal data taken by different fields of law. An increasing number of business models in the digital economy rely on personal data as a key input. In exchange for sharing their data, online users benefit from personalized and innovative services. But companies’ collection and use of personal data raise questions about privacy and fundamental rights. Moreover, given the substantial commercial and strategic value of personal data, their accumulation, control and use may raise competition concerns and negatively affect consumers. To establish a legal framework that ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data while at the same time providing an open and level playing field for businesses to develop innovative data-based services is a challenging task.With this objective in mind and against the background of the uniform rules set by the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the contributions to this book examine the significance and legal treatment of personal data in competition law, consumer protection law, general civil law and intellectual property law. Instead of providing an isolated analysis of the different areas of law, the book focuses on both synergies and tensions between the different legal fields, exploring potential ways to develop an integrated legal approach to personal data.
