The Dawn for a New Antitrust Law Framework for Digital Platforms, Evidence from an Empirical Comparative Analysis of EU Antitrust Decisions

• Main Authors: Shahzada Aamir Mushtaq, Fariha Sabahat, Huma Rao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: CSRC Publishing 2020-09-01
• Series: Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies
• Subjects: Digital Markets, Big Data, Competition Law, Digital Platforms, Data Protection and Privacy
• Online Access: http://www.publishing.globalcsrc.org/ojs/index.php/jbsee/article/view/1337

The Digital platforms are a unique creation of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The digital economy may have replaced the industrial economy, but the rules created to oversee the fair operation of the industrial economy have not kept pace with that evolution. The digitalization of the economy with consumer data as a new critical resource is an advancement of a technological revolution which needs an adaptation of regulatory framework for markets and the world economy. This paper analyzed the privacy and data protection concerns in the digital economy from an economic perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises. The tech giants, by controlling user's data are exploiting it for their own commercial benefits and inflicting the threats to the privacy of users.  This paper intends to shed light that it's not enough to look for policy solutions only within the competition or data protection law. Rather an integrated move from various regulatory perspectives is necessary. Therefore, the article focuses that the formalistic approach to article 101 and 102 of TFEU (Treaty On The Functioning OF The European Union which the EU Commission usually adopted as an effects-based approach) to counter exploitative, exclusionary practices, and potential harm to consumers is efficacious to regulate the digital platforms. Furthermore, this research presses the necessity of how the abusive conduct of data-driven entrants be regularized by forwarding the new concepts of antitrust law and its effective enforcement across the globe. The digital platforms have fundamentally changed the ways we interact with news, with each other, and with governments and business. Digital platforms act as intermediaries which connect two or more market participants via the platform and simplify their interaction.