Euractiv, here.
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
Meta Sudans Redux: AGCM at the Gates
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Fresh off the press release: the Italian antitrust authority has knocked — quite literally — on Meta’s door. A dawn raid hit the company’s Italian offices just yesterday. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but there’s been a notable uptick in enforcement on this side of the pond since that so-called 'windmills' trade deal struck on the golf course.
The opening decision spans some fifteen pages, and it's apt to delight both the die-hard antitrust nerds and those somewhat disillusioned by competition law, who now see more promise in a concerted regulatory front combining multiple toolkits at once. As you Wavesblog Reader will have gathered by now, I firmly belong to the latter camp — and it’s from that vantage point that I’ll offer a few brief reflections on this decision.
For many of us in the latter camp, this 2014 Venn diagram from the European Data Protection Supervisor remains, to this day, a quietly persistent source of inspiration. The attentive Reader will have noticed that this diagram makes no mention of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) — unsurprisingly, as it entered into force a full decade after the diagram first appeared. Nor does it include more recent hybrid instruments, such as Section 19a of the German Competition Act. I would place the DMA precisely at the intersection of those three circles — where data protection, competition, and consumer protection converge. Technically speaking, the DMA operationalises elements from each of these domains. From competition law, it borrows e.g. the focus on market power, albeit reinterpreted, and barriers to entry; from data protection, it incorporates core principles such as consent, data minimization and the 'by design' principle; from consumer protection, it reflects concerns such as user manipulation. But this is far from a flattening or plain subsuming of these established legal domains. Something original has emerged, a distinct regulatory logic.
Back to the AGCM's decision. If you’re anything like me, you did everything you could to avoid clicking on the shimmering little button that popped up on your WhatsApp screen — but you couldn’t exactly miss it either. As the Italian authority put it, the "Meta AI service was made autonomously available to users without them having taken any action to that effect. In other words, Meta chose to pre-install Meta AI and place it in a prominent position on the screen, making the service immediately available to all its WhatsApp users.” While neither the icon nor the search bar can be removed by the user, the Italian authority explained that users could, if they wished, initiate an independent chat with other AI services—such as ChatGPT—by manually adding them as a contact. I tried it out immediately (ah, the things we do in the name of research: now I've ChatGPT sending me unrequested messages). And yet, the Meta AI icon stays firmly in place, as does the search bar, helpfully prompting: “Ask Meta AI or search."
The Italian authority then embarks on what can only be described as a Kafkaesque journey through Meta’s “policies.” At first, Meta appears to say they don’t use your interactions with Meta AI to train the model — and then, a few brave clicks later, they say they do. That is, except for private messages, unless you or someone in the chat chooses to share those private messages "with our AIs" too. And in any case, as the AGCM immediately notes, it was Meta itself that stated WhatsApp user interactions would be used to train and improve their models. But it doesn’t stop there. As the Italian antitrust authority points out, Meta’s Privacy Policy suggests that WhatsApp users may gradually receive a personalised version of the service — based on the information they themselves have provided to Meta. In other words, each interaction with Meta AI feeds the system with information, some of which is then used to deliver increasingly personalised outputs. The aim? As Meta puts it, to make the responses from Meta AI more “useful and relevant.”
Already at this point, there would be plenty to say from a data protection, consumer protection, and DMA perspective. But for now, let’s stick to plain antitrust logic — though, as we know, it’s never that plain, and at times not that logical. This is an investigation under Article 102 TFEU, aimed at determining whether there has been an abuse of dominant position. The focus is, in essence, on a potential case of leveraging market power from one market — where the company holds dominance — into another, adjacent but distinct, market where it does not. All of this is well covered by EU competition law precedents [I still remember a panel at ASCOLA 2018 NYU, chaired by Tim Wu, where the question was put to us panellists about what more antitrust law should be doing to tackle Big Tech. My answer then? Pay closer attention to these very forms of market leveraging 😇]. And this, indeed, appears to be the core of the authority’s allegation: a classic case of tying by a dominant firm. Meta, it is argued, offers its main service - WhatsApp - together with a bundled, secondary service - Meta AI. WhatsApp is an app designed for communication through advanced messaging technologies, while Meta AI is a separate service altogether — a generative AI tool meant to answer users’ general-purpose queries. Two distinct services. No question about it. But these aren’t just core platform services, as one might frame them under a DMA lens. From an antitrust perspective, they also correspond to distinct and separate markets. When it comes to Meta’s dominance in the consumer communications market via app — whether at national or EU level — there is little room for reasonable doubt. The market definition and Meta’s entrenched position therein as sketched in the decision offer few revelations. More intriguing — and potentially more consequential — is the discussion around the market for AI chatbot or AI assistance services. The authority ventures into some possible delineations and goes on to consider potential competitors and their relative positions, but ultimately finds that, at this stage, the definition of the relevant markets for AI services can be left blissfully open. With the question of market definition set aside, we reach what ought to be the real crux of the case: the identification of the alleged abuse. As previously indicated, the alleged abuse, according to the authority, lies in Meta tying two distinct services — WhatsApp and Meta AI — by pre-installing Meta AI within the WhatsApp app. Following the pre-installation, the AGCM argues, Meta — already in a dominant position with WhatsApp — would secure a competitive advantage in the market for AI chatbot or assistant services. The reason is straightforward: with minimal friction, WhatsApp’s more than 120 million users across Europe are instantly turned into potential users of Meta AI.
And here comes the discussion I personally find most compelling — not least for its broader implications. In paragraph 44, the authority goes a step further and notes that "it is also possible that Meta trains its AI model on the data and/or interactions with the user base of the service in which it holds a dominant position.” The authority thus argues that users are not only effectively *drawn* into using Meta AI through its pre-installation in the WhatsApp app — they also have their data and interactions used to train Meta’s AI model. These two intertwined dynamics may well produce exclusionary effects for rival providers of AI chatbot or assistant services, especially in light of the increased risk of user lock-in and functional dependency. In fact, argues the AGCM, Meta AI appears to store user-provided data over time — meaning its outputs become progressively more tailored and “relevant” as interaction increases, thereby reinforcing user reliance and raising the barriers for competitors.
This, dear Wavesblog Reader, is merely the opening decision. How it unfolds remains to be seen. But the heart of the matter seems clear enough: AI services offered by Big Tech — the very same platforms we use to chat with relatives, search online, or draft blog posts like this one, are being quietly shoved down our throats. Not only are we given no meaningful choice as to whether we want to use these services — they come bundled, pre-installed, ready or not — but once we do, we effectively feed them. Our interactions are harvested to train their models as well as, in Meta AI's case, apparently, personalise and refine the AI’s responses, making them feel ever more “useful,” while subtly reinforcing our reliance. The endgame from a purely antitrust perspective? A state of lock-in and functional dependency that all but shuts the door to alternative providers.
That said, one can’t help but notice once again how narrow this type of antitrust lens is.
TBC before the end of the week ;-).
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Die [europäischen] Industrie-Goliaths müssen besser erkennen, welche Davids wirklich gute Steinschleudern entwickelt haben
R. Laguna de la Vera, hier und hier.
Nötig ist eine neue Wettbewerbsordnung: Wer externe Innovation übernimmt, muss auch klare Schranken akzeptieren, damit keine unüberwindbaren „Moats“ entstehen. Gefragt ist mehr „Market Engineering“ in der Wettbewerbspolitik – eine Aufgabe, die Kartellbehörden übernehmen sollten, wie es die CMA bei Generative AI bereits versucht hatte, bevor man ihr einen Maulkorb verpasste. Und man muss auch sagen: Es geht nicht nur darum, ob Innovation stattfindet – sondern welche Art von Innovation. In einem Rechtssystem ohne klare Grenzen zum Schutz von Rechten, sozialem Welfare, Menschenwürde ist es natürlich einfacher, etwas als „innovativ“ zu feiern, scale-up und viel Geld daran verdienen.
Artificial Intelligence and Civil Liability
A. Bartolini, here (study requested by the EP JURI Committee).
Monday, July 28, 2025
China: Action Plan on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence
Here.
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| Scenario 1 |
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| Scenario 2 |
How will it unfold? Too early to call. But where does the EU fit in? One suspects the Global South would rather place its trust in Brussels’ regulatory safeguards than in Beijing’s overtures. Will Europe seize the moment, or squander it amid Trump-fuelled distractions and further dependencies?
Digital platforms and competition in Australia
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Evidence that the EuroStack debate |
Mandala Partners, here.
[Paid by Apple - and actually instructive]
Commission preliminarily finds Temu in breach of the Digital Services Act in relation to illegal products on its platform
PR, here.
Will we see more DSA and DMA action before the summer break?
R. BenjonThe best response to US tariffs would be for the EU to eliminate its own internal barriers to trade
S. Nixon, here.
[Serious question, need to find out: why can't I get a loan to buy a flat in Rome from, let's say, a Dutch bank?]
AI Should Help Fund Creative Labor
M. Mazzucato, F. Gernone, here.
"Plagiarize
Plagiarize
Let no one else's work evade your eyes ✅
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize”
- just to a whole new scale?
Another, complex conversation
Fueling US digital exports growth into the EU, you say?
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One gone, for now, two blissfully absent |
Peacock Tariff Consulting, here.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Friday, July 25, 2025
Boiled by Design: Can Europe Still Save Its Digital Frog (and almost everything else)?
First of all, I strongly recommend watching this discussion — one of the most engaging I’ve followed in recent weeks. Precisely because it brought real tensions to the surface, and there was no neat consensus, it proved especially useful. The participants themselves were almost mythic in stature, truly impressive figures. Among them, an economist of my own generation whom I’ve admired for decades (Mariana Mazzucato); a younger economist, equally stimulating, insightful and 'unorthodox' in her approach (Cecilia Rikap); and a third, also an economist (Francesca Bria), who has done remarkable work also from a legal perspective, I'm thinking especially of her time with the Municipality of Barcelona. The only technologist, and male, on the panel (Mike Bracken) chose his words carefully, and sensibly.
Now, I’d like to offer a few thoughts to set out where, in my view, the key points lie, and how we might frame them in a way that keeps this essential conversation moving in the right direction for the EU and beyond. I won’t begin with the problems, those are already well worn ground for any Wavesblog Reader who isn’t merely passing through. But if you do fall into that latter category, I’d suggest starting with the EuroStack Report itself, if you don't know it already, which came up several times during the panel discussion.
To stack or not to stack - and how?
Instead, I’ll begin with the blog post that accompanied the release of the panel video, as it already eloquently homes in on one of the underlying frictions. The post frames 'the core disagreement' as one of Ownership vs. Operational Sovereignty, one position being that pushing for digital regulation, something the EU is all too well known for, becomes little more than wishful thinking when the entities being regulated don’t just use infrastructure, but are the infrastructure. And those infrastructures "are controlled somewhere else, built according to laws we didn’t write, and underpinned by values we do not agree with." The opposing view says there’s no need for ownership, no need for democratic sovereignty over the layers of the stack, let alone the stack as a whole, As long as the right regulation is in place. That means building in the right regulatory safeguards: mandated interoperability, switching, portability, all the things we know sit also at the heart of the EU Digital Markets Act. The more radical version of the first position, as I see it, came from Bria. She was clear: yes, she’s spent at least part of her life pushing for the need of more, better digital regulation, but that’s no longer enough. We’re in a different phase now. It’s time to move beyond and, among other things, build. The second position was put forward by Bracken, drawing on his previous experience working for the UK government and his current work advising many more. His was a vision that includes leveraging on the (very) few digital public infrastructures we already have, with a nod to Brazil’s Pix system, which has recently attracted attention also from the Trump administration.
Then things got a little tense, and a touch tangled, when, at one point, the technologist referred to one of the women economists on the panel (it wasn’t quite clear which) as a Marxist. Judging by the subdued tone, I wouldn’t say it was meant as a compliment — more of an observation, perhaps. And, to further clarify his position, he added that he absolutely doesn’t buy into the idea of ownership over the stack. In his experience, the only place he’s ever seen it done is, you guessed it, China. Turning to the one tool that, in Biden’s words (remember?), keeps capitalism from becoming theft, namely, competition, Bracken argued that platforms should indeed be broken up. But his main point was this: industries work because there are standards (protocols!) — and when standards (technological and beyond) are in place, everything more or less falls into line. I didn’t quite share Bria's reaction, but yes, it did strike me as rather simplistic. From a legal and economic perspective, we know perfectly well that standards help things run, but they’re far from enough. Good functioning markets, where consumers, business users, and firms can confidently act and thrive, need a great deal more. So much more, in fact, that at times you can’t help but wonder whether the effort is really worth the candle. But the truth is, there aren’t many alternatives. So far, we haven’t managed to come up with anything better. So, do we stick with them, bolstered, for now, by a healthy dose of market engineering?
Rikap offered a perspective I wouldn’t place between the two, that would only flatten it. What she brought in terms of analysis was unmistakably ecosystemic. Her question cut through: which layers of the digital stack are chokepoints, offer a panopticon view of the economy and our live (i.e., everything happens on the cloud)s, and set the rules of distribution and production? Bingo: cloud services. Is it then a good idea to build an entire nation’s ID system on top of the cloud infrastructure controlled by Big Tech? Hardly. What struck me most, though, was when she spoke of complicity, naming names, such as Mistral and SAP. If we’re really in a phase where digital sovereignty is on everyone’s mind, where we’re all on edge about who holds the power, then the real question is: do we just carry on with capitalism-as-usual-only-worse? Or is it finally time to right the ship — and not just with a gentle nudge, but with a meaningful course correction?
Right after that, Rikap brings us back to a fascinating thread running through her research work. It’s not just about who produces knowledge, innovation — but about who ends up appropriating it. In a cascade from bad to worse, knowledge appropriated by those few isn’t being used to solve fundamental problems, take climate change, for instance. Quite the opposite: it often ends up making climate emergencies worse (think data centres). Nor we as a society might end up in great shape when it comes to producing new knowledge, regardless of who ends up capturing it. From Rikap’s perspective, we’re in epistemic trouble if we start tackling every problem, science included, with AI-based solutions alone, without even asking ourselves whether that kind of AI is the one we want. So where does that leave us? Until now, we heard of two paths: the EuroStack vision (Bria), or the technologically enlightened toolkit of interoperability, open standards, switching tools, regulatory safeguards, etc (Bracken). And Rikap? Bold. A "public-led, democratic, international, people centered, and ecological stack or value chain" is the way to go. One positive aspect is that the question of demand is addressed from the outset. Yes, the whole system is not only public-led: demand is also shaped by the state. And unsurprisingly, much of it should come from areas like healthcare and education, at least at the beginning. And here she turns to encouraging examples that stretch beyond Europe’s borders. Curiously, she brings up the Meta case in Nigeria, which I’ve briefly written about myself. She presents it as a situation in which Nigeria appeared willing to bear Meta’s market exit in order to enforce its digital regulation, if I understood correctly. I’ll need to think more about it myself.
Are these three visions irreconcilable? Certainly not. What's the most promising vantage point from which to start turning any of this into reality and saving the frog? What do we already have that can be used/repurposed/reused? And where, instead, will we need to overcome inertia/opposition and do something fundamentally different? On the latter, today we had one of those precious exchanges on BlueSky that still make you believe in net humanity and serendipity. Or way I just chatting with bots?
(/END? Not really, see here).
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Digital Markets Act: Civil society calls for investigation into Alphabet’s non-compliance
Article 19 et al., here.
Activating the full DMA's potential (Episode XX, still only scratching the surface):
"Article 27
Information by third parties
1. Any third party, including business users, competitors or end-users of the core platform services listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9), as well as their representatives, may inform the national competent authority of the Member State, enforcing the rules referred to in Article 1(6), or the Commission directly, about any practice or behaviour by gatekeepers that falls within the scope of this Regulation."
But (and this is one of the issues with the DMA, not the it wasn't mentioned during the negotiations):
"2.
The...Commission shall have full discretion as regards the appropriate
measures and are under no obligation to follow-up on the information received"
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Martijn Snoep: Antitrust & Industrial Policy. Independence or Coordination. Champions. Latest Cases
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| Tools available to make markets work |
Impressive, brave interview.
I'm perhaps a bit more positive about the long term impact of the DMA: it's going to evolve (that was the legislators' will), it creates new, important rights for end users and business users, and it is already influencing competition policy in a positive way. But it was never supposed to act in isolation (again, as foreseen by the legislators - see e.g. the HLG). Plenty of potential in many directions...
PayPal taps wallets from China and India to make cross-border payments easier for 2 billion people
TechCrunch, here.
[Paypal creating a privately owned infrastructure for cross-border payments?]
Real innovation happens when companies have to compete on merit, not on who can kiss the leader’s ass most effectively
TechDirt, here.
[Invited by the OECD to speak on competition and innovation, I only wish I’d presented my research findings just as effectively]
Nerd Reich: why tech billionaires want a ‘corporate dictatorship’
[What can a humble researcher, middle-aged woman and Italian on top of that, possibly do against what is already a serious threat to our precious democracy in the name of *tech and innovation*? Nothing, I'm afraid. But I'll keep frantically blogging, also a bit outside Wavesblog's traditional core topics - since October 2007, at least until Google starts censoring us here on Blogger ;-)]
The Sound of Reduced Competition? Music, Data, and the UMG/Downtown Merger
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| Not the usual Competition Commissioner's statement. Whole-of-Commission Approach? |
EC, here.
[Dutch company buying an US company, mind you. At any rate, it sounds lkve a no brainer theory of harm]
South Korea: Local DMA Bill "likely to be put on hold due to pressure from the TRUMP administration"
S. Lee (from LinkedIn), here.
"Discovered" by a researcher coming back from vacation? Don't they have civil society active in digital in South Korea?
Trump Goes to Bat for Big Tech in Global Trade Talks
[South Korea - local DMA dropped already? Cautious to say the least. Brazil - everything you want to know about their draft DMA and "electronic payment practices" aka Fab Pix here].
[I wonder how Brazilians would react if Trump successfully undermined their highly efficient sovereign digital infrastructure for electronic payments].
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Monday, July 21, 2025
Figma looks to raise nearly $1 billion as it kicks off its IPO roadshow
The abandoned Adobe/Figma merger? Hats off to the CMA. It deserves a pat on the back, not a muzzle.
From Digital Feudalism to Digital Sovereignty
UCL IIPP, bog and video here.
"here’s the tension: for Bria, we may already be past that point. In her view, interoperability without control is an illusion...The Bria–Bracken disagreement isn’t just academic. It reflects the real policy dilemmas facing governments today" essential discussion, listening to it again soon.
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Senate Hearing Debates AI Training on Copyrighted Works
Publishersweekly, here.
TBH, I've been appalled seeing how publishers fought against copyright exceptions for blind people at the WIPO and mistrusted their lobbying since (disclosure: I was representing the Italian Library Association in the negotiations), but this time they are right :-).
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Friday, July 18, 2025
Is EU consumer law getting ready for the agentic "revolution"?
Public consultation on the Digital Fairness Act, here.
Escape Forward: are we finally making progress? Cristina asks
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| And two seconds later she did block me 😇- nothing personal, ofc. Just belonging myself to one of those DMA groupies as annoying as mosquitos at sunset |
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Is the DMA Ready for Agentic AI?
CERRE, here.
[The DMA was never supposed to work in perfect isolation...And should constantly evolve _ whatever it takes]
America First Antitrust w/ Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Gail Slater
Video here.
[The name AFA makes me nostalgic even of the Chicago School: same with you?]
What is digital sovereignty and how can Europe achieve it? Ask Robin
Here.
Listened to it at least twice - fresh air for Rome's hot summer!
Monday, July 14, 2025
Navigating the Strait of Leipzig: 5,000 euros in damages to a Meta's end user for processing personal data on third-party websites
You Wavesblog Reader are no longer a Spanish Facebook user but a German user not at all enjoying reading gardening websites (your last Bavarian geraniums died off long ago, with no regrets) but you have an health issue (sorry for that!) and spend a lot of time surfing the Internet and spending time specifically on websites like apotheken.de, shopapotheke. de, docmorris.de, aerzte.de, helios-gesundheit.de, jameda.de (You tried out ChatGPT too but are far from trusting its advice).
Google to Pay $2.4 Billion in Deal to License Tech of Coding Startup, Hire CEO
WSJ, here.
Competition authorities are a bit distracted, as of late. Too little of real value or impact has been learned or done. Those who at least tried (Previous CMA, FTC under Lina Khan, DOJ under Jonathan Kanter) have been muted or removed. But, of course, we can all keep busy writing submissions and/or watching webinars.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Digital Markets Act Enforcement: Impact and next steps: Call for Papers (17 days left, so that you know)
Here. Of course, economies of scale and scope with the EC's public consultation on the DMA review would be rational!
Revising the DMA Variation-Selection-Adaptation Paper
Time for comments closed! Thank you for your great ones, Wavesblog Readers and beyond! Revising and updating it right now. Peer Reviewers are waiting.
I was already unofficially asked to make it (much) shorter: Sunday's cutting ✂✄
...
Submitted!
Friday, July 11, 2025
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Monday, July 07, 2025
Sunday, July 06, 2025
Saturday, July 05, 2025
Friday, July 04, 2025
Thursday, July 03, 2025
Why Cloudflare wants AI companies to pay for content
TechCrunch, here.
Great, but shouldn't it be a democratic decision taken by a legislator and not by an infrastructure ("gatekeeper")? Not just "tech is law" - get over it?
Targeted advertising by Meta democratised advertising and made people love ads (so we heard): discuss
Meta DMA enforcement/compliance workshop, video here.
Wednesday, July 02, 2025
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Aka " From Digital Feudalism to Digital Sovereignty " - UCL IIPP, blog and video here. First of all, I strongly recommend watching... -
Fresh off the press release: the Italian antitrust authority has knocked — quite literally — on Meta’s door. A dawn raid hit the company’s ... -
M. Kirkwood, here.
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Podcast with M. Mazzucato, here.
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Here . Scenario 1 Scenario 2 How will it unfold? Too early to call. But where does the EU fit in? One suspects the Global Sout... -
Details will matter... U. Leyen (von der), here .
