The phenomenon where a network's value escalates with each additional user, known as a direct network effect, exists across industries that may differ in terms of interoperability or compatibility. For instance, while email and telephone services benefit from seamless cross-network...

We study a model of behavior-based price discrimination where firms can agree to share customer information that can be used for personalized pricing. We show that firms are better off sharing customer information as it softens up-front competition when they gather information, consumers are...