Data sharing presents many opportunities in terms of stimulating innovation and creating a level playing field between businesses, but also carries risks by potentially decreasing incentives for data collection and analysis, facilitating collusion between firms or exploiting consumers as well as...

This report provides an overview of the relevant economic research literature on platforms or multi-sided online markets. It discusses platforms from a regulatory policy angle, including potential market failures in platforms, the extent of self-regulation and possible regulatory responses...

The first part of this paper focuses on competition between search engines that match user queries with webpages. User welfare, as measured by click-through rates on top-ranked pages, increases when network effects attract more users and generate economies of scale in data aggregation. However,...

This paper examines some key features of the proposed European Union Data Act (European Commission, 2022a). It gives users of tangible digital products and devices access and portability rights to the data generated by their use. This is a pro-competitive measure that weakens the de-facto...

Digital platforms, empowered by artificial intelligence algorithms, facilitate efficient interactions between consumers and merchants that allow the collection of profiling information which drives innovation and welfare. Private incentives, however, lead to information asymmetries resulting in...

Data plays a prominent role in the digital economy, as being able to use data to develop or improve innovative products or services is a key competitive parameter. Consequently, an increasing call for more data sharing is being made in the EU. However, this might create tensions with the policy...

Our European economy runs on data, which has become an essential resource for economic growth, job creation and societal progress, and data sharing is often presented as the avenue forward to reap such benefits. This call for more data sharing might create tensions with the personal data...

EU Competition Law, Data Protection and Online Platforms. Data as Essential Facility' provides a highly topical study of how EU competition law interacts with data on online platforms. All agree that the digital economy contributes to a dynamic evolution of markets and competition. Nonetheless,...

A consensus is emerging that a flourishing European data economy requires effective portability of and access to data for individuals as well as businesses. Beyond the right to data portability introduced in the General Data Protection Regulation, a number of data access regimes are being...