CASES AT.40721 – MICROSOFT TEAMS and AT.40873 – MICROSOFT TEAMS II

 Commitment Decision, here.

The Italian Competition Authority Imposes Interim Measures in its Abuse of Dominance Case Against Meta AI

 T. Davies, here.

Secteurs de la syndication de résultats de recherche et de la publicité en ligne : l’Autorité de la concurrence rejette la saisine au fond et la demande de mesures conservatoires formulées par la société Qwant à l’encontre de Microsoft

 Adlc, ici.

Plus que de véritables affrontements concurrentiels, le phénomène semble s’apparenter à une forme de connivence structurelle. Et les autres acteurs du marché ne semblent tirer aucun bénéfice de cette prétendue compétition...

Tristan Harris, the ultimate (literally?) Cassandra

 The Diary of a CEO, here.

If you listen carefully to Tristan Harris, it becomes crystal clear why the usual suspects are so opposed to the whole bunch of EU digital regulation that matters.

The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley

 NYT, here. 

Path to European Competitiveness and Sovereignty? Ask OpenAI, Microsoft and Booking

 Commenting on a CERRE Report, here.

Perhaps they also asked somebody else, later, but sorry: I can't watch any further. 

Open Is Sovereign: Why Europe’s Digital Future Must Be Built on Global Open Source Ecosystems

 Linux Foundation, here.

Coincidence? Google is increasingly closing Android, as we heard last week at the Article 19 Conference. 

"Though still nascent, agentic AI could significantly reshape competition..."

 OECD, here.

Tbd today, Trento U. 

Recipes for digital sovereignty in a changing geopolitical landscape

 Barcelona, whereelse here.

CO-OPERATIVE ANTITRUST IN REMEDY DESIGN

 OECD, Background Paper here.

I had expected rather more. Consumer associations were barely mentioned, and broader civil society did not appear at all. But, of course,why change course, given how extraordinarily effective our remedies have been so far? A veritable Sternstunde of antitrust, especially in digital markets...

First EU Member State to pass law prohibiting price-fixing algorithms? Can't wait

 Here.

People-first Playbook

 MyData, here. 

Meta probed over whether it pushed AI tool onto WhatsApp users without consent

 Independent, here. 

[But the title is, well, wrong]. 

The Wrist-Slappers Strike Again

 D. Dayen, here. 

Décision DoctoLib

 ADLC, ici. 

Digital Commons on the EU’s Digital Sovereignty Agenda

 Open Future, here.

Towards a Digital Clearinghouse...: Seriously?

Fooled once...

 EDPS, here. 

Rutger Bregman - Moral Revolution - (as censored by the BBC)

 BBC, here. 

I have listened to the whole thing, and the Q&A was, I suspect, the part I appreciated most. The "straight out of Silicon Valley" comments about Europe, forever regulating, never producing, felt rather surprising  - if the world were that simple (that's why we need good historians with hindsight)! True, we do risk turning ourselves into a dusty, romantic museum, but only if we fail to make intelligent use *also* of our own heritage, including through digital tools that are not simply parachuted in from California but adapted to our needs. 

And happily, a young ‘populist left’  has already emerged with exemplary standard-bearers such as Lina Khan among them.

 

Rapport de l’Autorité de la concurrence au titre de la pratique d’autopréférence définie à l’article L. 442-12 du code de commerce

 Adlc, ici. 

Interim Measures re Meta AI in sight?

 

25/11/2025

ACGM, here.  [I wrote a blog post on this proceeding what feels like very long ago, here]

"Meta’s new conduct appears to constitute, already prima facie, a possible violation of Article 102 TFEU, consisting in Meta’s refusal to allow AI chatbot or AI assistant providers—its competitors—to access the WhatsApp platform in order to offer such services to users." 

It was such a low hanging fruit that I was puzzled that other Tech bros weren't openly complaining about it - which hinted to the fact that they might have been pursuing other, possibly murkier strategies. When (also?) small (EU?) ones complained, European CAs were listening...

Google is a near-$4tn monument to monopoly power [aka a monument to US/EU regulatory failure to rein it in]

 

Xmas present to Judge Mehta? For your desk?

FT, here. 

A Critique of Recent Remedies for Third-Party Pricing Algorithms and Why the Solution is not Restrictions on Data Sharing

 J.E. Harrington, here. 

Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions

 J. De Freitas et al., here. 

Trump Falls Short of His Populist Rhetoric

 NYT, here. 

EDPS TechSonar 2025-26

 Here. 

The Rent Is Too Damn High: Did Trump Just 'Bless' Using AI to Jack Up Rents?

 M. Stoller, here. 

UNESCO adopts first global ethical framework for neurotechnology

 DigWatch, here. 

Google’s compliance with EU’s Big Tech rules gets Italian redesign

 Politico.eu, here.

DMA: Encirclement Without End?

We are only a few days on from the Berlin summit on European Digital Sovereignty, where the DMA  was celebrated as an essential component to reaching that objective.  It is evidently displeasing to Americans that they were not granted a prominent role (but still with a seat at the table) at a European technological summit, even though they remained very much the Elephants in the Room. Then the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is dispatched by Big Tech to Brussels and applies pressure across the board, anchoring the negotiation to tariffs on steel and aluminium on whether we are prepared to weaken our DMA and DSA rules. And this hurts, also common Germans, as pointed out by the MEP Alexandra Geese. The Digital Omnibus,  neatly arranged on a tray, proved insufficient to placate the American technological ogres.

One must recognise that the DMA (and the DSA) are among the last bastions still standing at the moment, and that a possible Brussels Débâcle would carry profound, global implications. If we yield as Europeans, we yield also on behalf of all the other countries attempting to contain the power of the technological ogres. This Brussels Débâcle may take various forms and shapes. I do not expect a retreat, but I fear that the line may shift. Some impactful changes, adjustments and delays agreed behind closed doors, at the highest level of the Commission, remain invisible to us and significantly undermine the democratic position of us, the citizens of the European Union.

[In the meanwhile, Margrethe Vestager reacted to this frontal attack, among many others: serious stuff. And Teresa Ribeira too: strong words; Macron also onboard  ] 

DOJ v. RealPage: Proposed Settlement

 Here. 

High Commissioner Türk calls on business to tackle today’s challenges with human rights as their guide

 OHCHR, here. 

COMMERCIAL COURT NO. 15 OF MADRID ON META

 Here.

Utopias: Daron Acemoglu

 Podcast here.

The Bad Reasoning in the Meta Antitrust Ruling Isn’t Even the Worst Part

 T. Wu, here.

THE ITALIAN COMPETITION AUTHORITY SECURES INFORMED AND FREELY GIVEN USER CONSENT TO GOOGLE’S LINKING OF SERVICES

 AGCM, here.

The video of the #EuroskyLive morning sessions is up

 Here.

Special Larry Summers Edition of the Slingshot

 Video here. 

The Economics of Zohran Mamdani

 Pro Market. here.

Why Are AI Giants Betting On India?

TPP, here. 

What Is Europe Trying to Achieve With Its Omnibus and Sovereignty Push?

 TPP, here. 

Sarah Cardell: Keynote address, competition policy 2025 conference

 Video here. 

“A.I.” browsers: the price of admission is too high

 B. Lawson, here. 

“Easy” Default Browser Settings Aren’t Always Easy

 Mozilla, here. 

Jornada 25- Thomas Höppner -Video -Entrevista

 Video here. 

ASCOLA NOEL 2025: Antitrust as amuse-bouche

 Video here. 

Data Portability Can Restore Real Consumer Choice Between ‘Consent or Pay’ Offerings Online

 Data Transfer Initiative, here. 

The EU made Apple adopt new Wi-Fi standards, and now Android can support AirDrop

 Ars Technica, here. 

Digital Rights Are on the Chopping Block in the European Commission’s Omnibus

 D. Leufer, here. 

ChatGPT is huge in India. These locally focused startups found a way to compete

 Rest of World, here. 

The Obligations of Providers of General-Purpose AI Models

 M. Veale, J.P. Quintais, here. 

Remedies Closing Arguments, November 21, 2025: A critical inflection point for the future of the open internet and tech accountability

 US v Google, here.

Meta, condenada a pagar 479 millones de euros a la prensa digital española por competencia desleal al infringir el Reglamento Europeo de Protección de Datos

 Aquí.

Digital Markets Act enforcement: Impact and next steps

 

Article 19 DMA Conference, Programme here. 

I thought it was a bit sci-fi, while writing the paper...

 

Europe: Investigations into cloud computing under DMA a welcome move

 Article 19, here.

Indeed, here.  

OpenAI strikes deal with Intuit to plug personal financial data into ChatGPT

 FT, here. 

A PROGRESSIVE ROADMAP FOR EXPANDING EUROPEAN DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY

 C. Rikap, here. 

Commission launches market investigations on cloud computing services under the Digital Markets Act

 EC, here. 

Booking.com taken to court

 CCC, here. 

Competing Legal Futures – “Commodification Bets” All the Way From Personal Data to AI

 M. Giraudo et al., here.

"Our" AI&fun panel at the Article 19 DMA Conference

Now that the programme has been officially released, I can say a word about Thursday’s panel, where I shall present a paper that is highly tentative: when I wrote it, it verged on science fiction, yet events have already overtaken it. One striking aspect of the panel is that we have four papers on artificial intelligence, which is noteworthy in itself. The perspectives are varied yet complementary. And while today the Commission opened three investigations in the cloud sector, our discussion moves further downstream: we consider also whether AI-related services should be expressly recognised as core platform services, which DMA obligations genuinely already apply to AI-related services , whether they can be regarded as adequate, whether the DMA should be even more ex-ante, etc.

I suspect the session will be lively.  

Cloudflare CEO says Google is abusing its monopoly in search to feed its AI

 Fortune, here.

Replicate is joining Cloudflare

 Cloudflare, here. 

The Court fails to provide remedies to prevent Google from repeating its same illegal monopolization of artificial intelligence-related markets

 AELP, here. 

Google: Our Frankly Modest Proposal

 Here. 

[Gearing for a fight?] 

Rebalancing Europe’s Digital Power: Decentralisation as a practical route to Digital Sovereignty

 EDI, here. 

Anatomy of a Franco-German tech misfire

 Politico.eu, here. 

How to break up firms well

 Rebalance Now, here. 

It’s central planning, Silicon Valley-style

 M. Stoller, here. 

Interview Nextcloud - 1ère partie - GAIA-X est mort, vive EuroStack

 Clubic, ici.

German court rules Google must pay €572M for violating antitrust rules in price comparison sector

 TechCrunch, here.

Idealo selbst hier.

Team SCiDA here.

Breaking Down the EU’s Investigation into Google’s Search Policy

 M. Kikwood, here.

With a bit of mise en abyme, apologies!

Messaging Interoperability: WhatsApp enables third-party chats for users in Europe

 Meta itself, here.

A bit emotional myself, what  about you? 

Idealo vs. Google: Suchmaschine zu 465 Millionen Euro Schadenersatz verurteilt

 Heise.de, hier.

Google offers ad tech tweaks in EUR3 billion antitrust fight

 TheEdgeSingapore, here. 

Kann uns Trump das Internet abschalten?

 Ja? Nein? Antwort hier. 

Neues Bündnis fordert mehr Engagement für offene Netzwerke

 Hier. 

Aus der Plattformnische[n?] in den Mainstream

 Agora, hier. 

A Return of Industrial Policies? Only a Partial and Dystopic One

 G. Dosi, here. 

Eurosky Live

 Here.

Lina chez Jon Stewart

 Here.

Innovation durch Regulierung?

 Hier. 

Autoridade da Concorrência: 2025 Lisbon Conference

 Videos here. 

Just in time for a relaxing Friday class: watching (and commenting on) a couple of panels with my Students tomorrow 🍿🍿🍿

Facebook Marketplace gets new collaborative and social features, Meta AI integrations

 Here. 

Commission opens investigation into possible anticompetitive conduct by energy drink manufacturer Red Bull

 Here. 

Commission opens investigation into potential Digital Markets Act breach by Google in demoting media publishers' content in search results

 EC, here. 

Google augments AI shopping with conversational search, agentic checkout and an AI that calls stores for you

 TechCrunch, here. 

Making Platforms Accountable

 ORG, here. 

The dilemmas of delegation

 Ada Lovelace Institute, here.

Discussing a DMA draft paper next week in Brussels exploring related themes...

Lina Khan’s populist plan for New York: Cheaper hot dogs (and other things)

 Semafor, here.

Brazil’s Calibrated Revolution in Digital Competition

 V. Oliveira Fernandez, here.

Sovereignty-as-a-service: How big tech companies co-opt and redefines digital sovereignty

 R. Grohmann et al., here.

EU developers don't pass on App Store fee savings to users, says Apple

 AppleInsider, here.

Where to start? 

EU readies fresh investigation into Google over news publisher rankings

 FT, here. 

Irish watchdog opens content moderation probe on Elon Musk's X

 Euractiv, here. 

A new DMA Fan, you all: Sir Tim Berners-Lee!

 The Verge, here. 

Germany’s Tech Betrayal: How We’re Selling Our Sovereignty to US Giants

 B. Korz, here. 

Artificial Intelligence and Competitive Dynamics in Downstream Markets

 OECD Background Note, here. 

Competition in AI infrastructure

 OECD Background Note, here. 

Race for Compute

 Accel, here. 

2025-11-10 Berlin Freedom Conference: The Role of AI

 Here.

Music rights group scores landmark legal victory in copyright battle with OpenAI

 Charting GenAI, here. 

Landgericht München I hier and hierTranslation here (H/T Tobias Vossberg)

WebSummit 2025

 Day 1, here.

Brussels knifes privacy to feed the AI boom

 Politico.eu, here.

The New Geoeconomics of Hard Power Requires New Tools. Will Europe Update?

 C. Caffarra, here. 

Wikipedia urges AI companies to use its paid API, and stop scraping

 TechCrunch, here.

From Attention Merchants to Intention Architects: The invisible infrastructure reshaping human curiosity

 S. Fang, here.

The Man Who Tracks Silicon Valley’s ‘Nerd Reich’

 The Tyee, here.

EU Commission internal draft would wreck core principles of the GDPR

 Noyb, here. 

Building an independent, open and healthy digital environment for European consumers

By Robin...

 EP IMCO, here and here. 

 

Réconcilier concurrence et politique industrielle

 Ici.

OpenAI asked Trump administration to expand Chips Act tax credit to cover data centers

 TechCrunch, here.

CAMBRIDGE TAXONOMY OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY RISK

Here.. 

Rethinking Economic Power in the Digital Age

 UCL + Tommaso, here.

Leaked Digital Package on Simplification

 Here.

Tim Wu with Lina Khan: The Age of Extraction

 Video here.

Philippe Aghion, une trajectoire intellectuelle : grand entretien avec le prix Nobel d’Économie 2025

 Le Grand Continent, ici.

How Many More Cloud Scares Does Europe Need?

 R. Berjon, here.

Disruptive Innovation and Antitrust

 P. Larouche, A. de Streel, here.

Topic of my PhD in economics at fn. 6 

The Meta Fraud Tithe; AI Is Out-Negotiating SaaS

 AdExchanger, here.

Better Access: Data for the Common Good

 KGI, here. 

Google's Hidden Empire

 A. Blankertz, B. Rock, N. Shaxson, here. 

The 40-year economic mistake that let Google conquer (and enshittify) the world

 C. Doctorow, here. 

L’Autorité sanctionne Doctolib à hauteur de 4 665 000 euros pour avoir abusé de sa position dominante dans le secteur de la prise de rendez-vous médicaux en ligne et des solutions de téléconsultation médicale

 Adlc, ici. 

Gene Burrus on Google, AI, and the Future of Antitrust

 Podcast here.

A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light

 404 Media, here. 

India AI: Governance Guidelines

 Here. 

Microsoft superintelligence team promises to keep humans in charge

 Semafor, here. 

[So much wrong about this title that I wouldn't know where to start...]

The Era of Answer Engines

 Ofcom, here. 

MAGENTIC MARKETPLACE: AN OPEN-SOURCE ENVIRONMENT FOR STUDYING AGENTIC MARKETS

 Microsoft, here.

How Many More Cloud Scares Does Europe Need?

 R. Berjon, here.

FIRST BLOOM: INCREASED CONSUMER CHOICE AFTER EIGHTEEN MONTHS OF THE DMA The E

 BEUC, here.

Legal Corner: Apple’s “notarisation” – blocking software freedom of developers and users!

 FSFE, here.

AirPods Live Translation feature coming to the EU next month

 9to5Mac, here.

How long before the next "product can't possibly be launched in the EU because of annoying digital regulation"?

Amazon v. Perplexity

 Complaint here.

And what does Perplexity say? Here.

DOJ lists ‘innumerable’ ways Google could maintain an ad tech monopoly

 The Current, here.

Breaking: Google and Epic propose settlement to end years-long legal battle in the US

 AndroidAuthority, here.

The Authoritarian Stack

 Here.

AdTech: DoJ Proposed Remedies

 Here.

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft will Daten aus US-Clouds holen

 Heise.de, hier.

Europe’s deep-tech engine could spur $1 trillion in economic growth

McKinsey (cough), here.

The future of merger control...

 ICLE, Video here.

Tech gatekeepers quizzed on data handling amid AI rollout

 MLex, here. 

The U.S. is becoming an Nvidia-state

 M. Wong, C. Warzel, here. 

Generative AI and the Future of the Digital Commons: Five Open Questions and Knowledge Gaps

 A. Noroozian et al., here. 

Private Enforcement of the DMA: Germany Takes the Lead with the 1&1 Mail & Media/Google (Gmail) Case

 J. Tamayo, here.

Did Google not want to allow access to OpenAI for competitive reasons?

 Quantable, here.

Open Access & Copyright in the age of AI

 Hertie, Bocconi, here

Better protection for players of video games

 ACM, Position Paper, here.

Google/AGCM-Enel X

 CdS- Final Cut, here.

Fellowship „Internationale Digitalpolitik“ - Wir suchen deine Ideen für die Internationale Digitalpolitik!

 Hier.

Traumopportunity!

Google dessine le monde : faut-il s’inquiéter ? Cartographie, pouvoir et dépendance numérique

 Avec Sébastien Soriano (!), ici.

Prix nobel de l'économie 2025 (grillé) à l'Assemblée nationale

 Vidéo ici. 

Débat intéressant car le néo-schumpétérisme à la Aghion rencontre ici le populisme économique à la française, tant à droite qu’à gauche. Les autorités de concurrence devraient également y prêter attention : il ne suffit pas d’écarter ces voix en les qualifiant d’économiquement illettrées, ni de se retrancher derrière quelques écrits et affirmer que toutes les implications d’un modèle n’ont pas été pleinement prises en compte. 

Alors qu’aux États-Unis, le mouvement néo-brandeisien a en partie intégré des revendications populistes et tenté de les traduire en actions concrètes de politique de la concurrence, en Europe nous en sommes restés bien éloignés jusqu’à présent. Les temps changeraient-ils ? Il existe une soif de réponses concrètes à de véritables problèmes ; c’est, en fin de compte, de cela que dépend la légitimité démocratique de la politique de concurrence. 

How OpenAI Uses Complex and Circular Deals to Fuel Its Multibillion-Dollar Rise

 

NYTimes, here. 

Determining Which Researchers Can Collect Public Data Under the DSA

D. Keller, here. 

Data Sharing Guidelines

 ACM, here.

[Very useful also for teaching purposes! We worked extensively on the Data Act this semester - a bit too late for us though, we have since moved to other topics]