Algorithmic Antitrust

herausgegeben von: Aurelien Portuese

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten

Über dieses Buch

Algorithms are ubiquitous in our daily lives. They affect the way we shop, interact, and make exchanges on the marketplace. In this regard, algorithms can also shape competition on the marketplace. Companies employ algorithms as technologically innovative tools in an effort to edge out competitors. Antitrust agencies have increasingly recognized the competitive benefits, but also competitive risks that algorithms entail. Over the last few years, many algorithm-driven companies in the digital economy have been investigated, prosecuted and fined, mostly for allegedly unfair algorithm design. Legislative proposals aim at regulating the way algorithms shape competition. Consequently, a so-called “algorithmic antitrust” theory and practice have also emerged. This book provides a more innovation-driven perspective on the way antitrust agencies should approach algorithmic antitrust.

To date, the analysis of algorithmic antitrust has predominantly been shaped by pessimistic approaches to the risks of algorithms on the competitive environment. With the benefit of the lessons learned over the last few years, this book assesses whether these risks have actually materialized and whether antitrust laws need to be adapted accordingly. Effective algorithmic antitrust requires to adequately assess the pro- and anti-competitive effects of algorithms on the basis of concrete evidence and innovation-related concerns. With a particular emphasis on the European perspective, this book brings together experts and scrutinizes on the implications of algorithmic antitrust for regulation and innovation.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Prologue: Algorithmic Antitrust—A Primer

Abstract

The impact of algorithms in our daily lives is ubiquitous. And the impact of algorithms in the competitive environment within which firms operate and consumers shop is equally ubiquitous. Indeed, in the age of Big Data and technological disruptions, algorithms rank search results, help process information and steer prices. The application of antitrust policies to algorithm-driven companies has given rise to what can be referred as “algorithmic antitrust.” This chapter provides an overview of the key antitrust implications of algorithms with a predominantly European perspective. The approach aims avoiding both excessively negative portrayal of the effects of algorithms on competition—since many antitrust concerns rarely materialize—without overlooking the specific and convincing competition issues raised by enforcing antitrust laws to algorithm-driven companies. Algorithmic antitrust in general, and in Europe in particular, deserves particular scrutiny. Without resorting to slogans and catchy answers, this chapter maps out the field before other authors delve into specific topics in the subsequent chapters of this book.

Aurelien Portuese

Algorithmic Antitrust: A Critical Overview

Abstract

This chapter introduces the key issues, economics, and competition concerns surrounding algorithmic antitrust. It provides an overview of recent developments in the economics and legal issues raised by digital platforms and algorithms in the areas of abuse of dominance, algorithmic pricing and collusion, and mergers. The general theme is that while much has been made of the possible anticompetitive effects of the large digital platforms, there is little hard evidence to support many of the core premises underpinning current competitive assessments of large digital platforms and the need for the reform of competition law. This chapter seeks to redress this imbalance.

Cento Veljanovski

Algorithmic Antitrust and Consumer Choice

Abstract

This chapter considers how algorithms affect competition and what their implications are for competition policy. With the economy going digital, a huge number of great innovations have materialized. Consumers have greatly benefitted from these innovations. However, several antitrust issues have emerged. This chapter looks at both the consumer benefits as well as the antitrust issues. It examines contemporary reports to determine whether algorithmic innovations have produced competition law concerns such as tacit collusion or price personalization. Other more sophisticated issues include the increase in nudging strategies from digital platforms.

Liza Lovdahl Gormsen

Algorithms, Big Data, and Merger Control

Abstract

The ubiquity of algorithms has profound implications for the way businesses compete, perhaps most critically, through their use to harness and extract value from big data. Data has been variously described as “the new oil” and “the new currency”, amongst other metaphors. Both these descriptions help to conceptualise data as a valuable, fungible asset, which can be leveraged to the competitive advantage of the firm holding it. But if data is the new oil, it is the crude oil and algorithms make up the rest of the supply chain necessary to obtain value from it. It would therefore seem obvious that the data held, and algorithms used by, merging parties would come under scrutiny in merger reviews of what we describe in this chapter as “algorithm-driven businesses”. The purpose of this chapter is to catalogue the various ways in which analysis of algorithms (and big data) have featured in merger control decisions thus far, in the hope it may shed light on how practice may evolve going forwards.

Verity Egerton-Doyle, Jonathan Ford

Reasons to be Cheerful: The Benevolent Market Power of Decentralised Blockchains

Abstract

We remain uncertain as to the prospects of a Blockchain revolution, nevertheless, in this chapter, we focus on the reasons for optimism, and in particular, why we think that decentralised permission-less blockchains might offer the prospect of radical pro-competitive and inclusive efficiencies, and hence might contribute to a pro-competitive industrial policy. Given these possibilities we therefore expect that blockchain will continue to capture the attention of policymakers that are keen to deliver shared prosperity in a post-COVID world. We suggest that competition agencies might explore whether actions by incumbents and regulators might create barriers to the emergence of a particular type of Blockchain, specifically decentralised permission-less blockchains with platform functionality.

Chris Pike, Gabriele Carovano

Can Antitrust Trust Blockchain?

Abstract

Although blockchain is decentralized by designed, today this technology is in practice in the hands of few corporations—antitrust can be crucial in restoring blockchain’s decentralization. Having provided a toolkit to navigate into the blockchain ecosystem of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), Section 3 investigates the relation between competition and blockchain. Is blockchain the real game-changer for today’s centralized digital markets? Section 3 explores the exploitation of DLT as a tool to enforce antitrust principles more efficiently in today’s tech-digital economy. In particular, it will be analyzed if blockchain and DLT, in general, can be considered as revolutionary progress also in the context of antitrust. Section 4 bears the question as to whether blockchain raises antitrust concerns and how to deal with them. Technologies are not the driver of anticompetitive conduct, but forms of government surveillance, such as antitrust, are fundamental for keeping people’s trust in new advanced technologies.

Giovanna Massarotto

The Technology Innovation Time Gap in Competition Law Enforcement: Assessing the European Commission’s Approach

Abstract

In this Chapter, it will be demonstrated that, over the years, a competition enforcement discrepancy (or “technology innovation time gap”) has emerged. It has become apparent that old regulatory tools, such as the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (and its accompanying Commission Guidelines) respond to past phenomena without being a means to anticipate upon and regulate not only future and unknown technological change, but also those technological innovations, such as Blockchain, which are too “young” to have any enforcement precedent which would provide an analytical background for the needs of block exemptions and the guidance which defines their application in practical terms. This will be analyzed in Section I below. Second, new tools are created to allow the Commission to react virtually immediately to new technological phenomena that introduce disruptive features into competition in certain markets, and this, with less and less procedural constraints. And this will be analyzed in Section II below.

Pierre Kirch

Epilogue: Algorithmic Antitrust—A Questioning

Abstract

What have we learned from the competition analysis applied to algorithm-driven companies? First, the interest by enforcement agencies and the complexity of the antitrust implications of algorithms suggest that a new area of antitrust inquiry has emerged – namely, what we coin as “algorithmic antitrust”. Second, contrary to early treatments of algorithmic antitrust, the experience of algorithms on competition both reveals considerable innovation benefits of algorithms and limited anticompetitive concerns. As algorithms increasingly become technologies adopted by every company in any given industry, the competitive advantage of algorithms over non-algorithmic competitive shrinks. As algorithmic innovation quickly becomes commonly used, algorithmic competition intensifies, and allegedly anticompetitive conduct becomes common business practices. In other words, more than strong assertions, algorithmic antitrust raises many questions and more questioning than gloomy predictions of algorithm-driven anticompetitive conduct. As companies compete via algorithmic innovations, antitrust enforcement ought to reconsider their overall pessimistic conclusions about algorithmic antitrust and rather ensure that companies embrace algorithms as an innovative way to compete.

Aurelien Portuese

Titel: Algorithmic Antitrust
herausgegeben von: Aurelien Portuese
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-85859-9
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-85858-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85859-9