Thursday, September 15, 2016

An Antitrust Review of a Bayer-Monsanto Merger

A. Grunes, M. Stucke, here.

FTC Approves Final Order Preserving Competition in Markets for 79 Pharmaceutical Products

FTC, here.

Fusion hängt von Bayers Bereitschaft zu Zugeständnissen ab

WiWo, hier

Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People

The White House, Executive Order, here.
Also "White House Summit on Behavioral Science Insights", here (live soon)

Anti-Surge Pricing


UN High-Level Panel On Access To Medicines Issues “Landmark” Report

IP-watch, here.

Report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel On Access To Medicines

New EU Telco Rules

Arstechnica, here.

Competition and the Digital Single Market

M. Vestager, here.

E-Commerce Sector Inquiry: Preliminary Report

Press Release, here. Fact sheet here. Preliminary Report here.

Digital content:
- "the information provided during the sector inquiry... shows that multiple business models and a great diversity of licensing practices are available and indeed used, which can cater for the needs of both right holders and digital content providers";
-"Little substantive evidence was provided on the importance of pre-sale arrangements to fund new products by respondents, in relation to the products included in the sector inquiry."

E-Commerce Sector Inquiry: Second Batch of Results

EC press conference by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, 15 September 16.30h, here (not live bc of satellite technical problems...).

"If it is agreements between companies that are restricting e-commerce across Europe’s national borders, then you can expect competition enforcement to follow", speech11.09.2015.

My personal "highlights" (from today's press conference):

- investigation into online video games and geo-blocking still ongoing;
- E-commerce sector inquiry and pay-tv case "very, very distant relatives": former much broader (more "generic"), considering also consumer goods where there are ("obviously") the same restrictions but many more (I´d add that, with regard to digital content, restrictions in the licensing agreements well beyond geo-blocking have been identified by the EC);
- E-commerce sector inquiry as a source of information for the legislator (possibly, copyright - and geo-blocking regulation).

Bookatable-Reaktion auf Kartellrechtsbeschwerde

Ahgz.de, hier.

Thursday, September 08, 2016

GC: Lundbeck confirmed

T‑472/13, here.
"The ‘scope of the patent’ test is...based on a subjective assessment, by the applicants, of the scope of their patents and of their validity, whereas a national court or competent authority may have taken a different view" (491).

CJEU GS Media on hyperlinking

C 160/15, here.

AG Øe on art. 9 infoSoc

Case C‑275/15, here.

AG Wahl on EU competence re Marrakech Treaty

Opinion procedure 3/15, here.

Protection des données dès la conception : le cas de la géolocalisation des appareils

Linc, ici.

Allergan CEO disavows 'predatory pricing'

BioPharmaDive, here.

Why Uber Is an Economist’s Dream

Freakeconomics Podcast, here.

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Collusion and Online Platforms in Eturas

K. Havu & N. Zupančič, here

EU-Kommission will Leistungsschutz für Verleger einführen

WiWo, hier

Relaxing Privacy Vow, WhatsApp to Share Some Data With Facebook

NYTimes, here

Leak: Impact Assessment on the modernisation of EU copyright rules

StateWatch, here.

(Pity the annexes are missing).

"...stakeholders also underline a risk that introducing the COO (country of origin, WB) rule for online transmissions will weaken territorial licensing of rights (or even lead to mandatory pan-European licensing). They argue that the establishment of the COO rule in combination with the application of the free movement of services principle and competition law would have a detrimental effect on territorial licensing. As it is not possible to predict potential future effect that the application of the free movement of services principle and competition law may have on territorial licensing of rights, this IA does not assess impacts that the proposed intervention may have in combination with these rules".

WIPO, Design and Burkini: "Success Story to learn"

“Looking Good”: The Role of Design in Branding, here.
Read also the Guardian, here.


Friday, August 19, 2016

Forget Uber: Fly over traffic jams at the push of a button

The mythical Paperinik, gem of Italian creativity
AirBus, here.

Scholar behind 'net neutrality' joins White House as competition policy adviser

TheHill, here.
See also here.

Prison breakthrough

TheEconomist, here.

Pirates in the Library – An Inquiry into the Guerilla Open Access Movement

B. Bodó, here.

Proyecto para regular apps es "redundante" y anticompetitivo

ElObservador (Uruguay), aquí.

Digital Single Market Update: The European Commission’s Proposal to Revise the Audiovisual Media Services Directive

Morrison & Foerster, here.

The Olympics and IP

ManagingIP, here.

White House Kept Close Tabs on FTC Google Probe

Google Transparency Project, here.
(Mails have some interesting attachments)

A New Approach to Copyright Exceptions and Limitations

J. Band, here.

ACCC continues its review of banks’ application for authorisation to collectively bargain with Apple

ACCC, here.

The Getty Museum's Lessons Learned From Opening Up Content

TecHDirt, here.

Banks v. Bots

Forbes, here.

Fitch: CMA Remedies Could Mean Slow Profit Erosion at UK Banks

Reuters, here.

Market definition and the sharing economy

C. Ortiz, here.

El modelo de Denominación de Origen y restricciones a la competencia

CNMC, aquí

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Attention Brokers

T. Wu, here

Expect Little Antitrust Challenge to Walmart’s Bid for Jet.com

NYTimes, here

Intel Cuts the Cord With New VR Headset Called Project Alloy

Bloomberg, here.

Intel creates quasi Hollywood studio for sports and entertainment VR

VentureBeat, here

Price Discrimination Markets Lead Antitrust Enforcers to Increased Success

McDermott Will & Emery, here

MIT Media Lab Launched Disobedience Award, Funded By Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn)

TechCrunch, here.

Media, sports companies rattled by planned EU copyright shake-up

Euractiv, here and Reuters here (spot the differences). 

EU to crack down on online services such as WhatsApp over privacy

TheGuardian, here.

La fin de la prise jack sur l’iPhone 7 ouvrirait une nouvelle ère pour l’écosystème Apple

Numérama, ici.

La confiance est-elle une donnée personnelle comme les autres ?

LINC, ici.

The Internet Value Chain

A.T. Kearney for the GSMA, here.

Researchers track the trackers through 20 years of the archived web

TechCrunch, here.

Audi vernetzt seine Autos in den USA mit Ampel-Infrastruktur

Heise.de, hier.

Internet Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Trackers: An Archaeological Study of Web Tracking from 1996 to 2016

A. Lerner, A. Kornfeld Simpson, T. Kohno, and F. Roesner, here.

XS4ALL and KPN end privacy violations digital TV

Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, here

Google lets any publisher apply to have “Critic Reviews” of local businesses

SearchEngineLand, here.

Supermärkte sollen ihre Einkaufspreise offenlegen

FAZ, hier.

Internet of Things strategies are going from general to specialized and vertical

Recode, here.

Der Adblocker und die Pressefreiheit

Handelsblatt, hier.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Werner Herzog’s meditations on a connected world

TechCrunch, Videos (trailer and interview) here.

Clausewitz: "Der Krieg ist mit seinem Resultat nie etwas Absolutes
Endlich ist selbst die Totalentscheidung eines ganzen Krieges nicht immer für eine absolute anzusehen...
10. Die Wahrscheinlichkeiten des wirklichen Lebens treten an die Stelle des Äußersten und Absoluten der Begriffe"

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

FTC Sues 1-800 Contacts For Restricting Competitive Keyword Advertising

E. Goldman, here.

Decentralizing the Web: Two Technological Approaches

Digitaltrends, here.

Copyright and Distributive Justice

J. Hughes, R. Merges, here.

Data-Generating Patents

B. Simon, T. Sichelman, here.

Privacy scandal haunts Pokemon GO's CEO

The Intercept, here.

Protecting the Olympic Properties

M. Wüthrich, here.

FTC Sues 1-800 Contacts, Charging that It Harms Competition in Online Search Advertising Auctions and Restricts Truthful Advertising to Consumers

FTC, here.

US Government Now Has An Official Open Source Software Policy

TechDirt, here.

GPL-Klage gegen VMware abgewiesen

Heise.de, hier.

HEIST is a big DEAL

D. Carroll, here.

Apple versus the banks

Australiancompetitionlaw.org, here.

How Uber Manages Drivers Without Technically Managing Drivers

FastCompany, here.

Yelp, TripAdvisor: Google’s mobile ‘best-of lists’ hide our content

SearchEngineLand, here.

Instagram castrated Snapchat like Facebook neutered Twitter

TechCrunch, here.

Monday, July 25, 2016

The joy of data

BBC documentary, here.

A must-watch for my students - and almost everybody else!

Big Data first mentioned at 46:33.

Possible "concerns" get 4 seconds (hours in my course).

Coffee and donuts in first US commercial drone delivery

Theeit.org, here.

The Economist asks: Richard Thaler

The Economist, Podcast here.

Indien: Ringing Bells hat erste 3-Euro-Smartphones ausgeliefert

Heise.de, hier.

After buying Yahoo for nearly $5 billion, Verizon is now in the search business

SearchEngineLand, here.

Chatbots: Fad Or The Future?

TechDirt, Beach Podcast, here.

Big Data: How Computers Are Collecting Our Personal Details

BigIssue, here.

Apple lays the groundwork to kill online advertising

TechCruch, here.

(Un)Fairness of Risk Scores in Criminal Sentencing

Forbes, here.

Metal 3D printing takes flight

TechCrunch, here.

Pokemon Gone

Bloomberg, here.

Understanding Online Markets and Antitrust Analysis

D. Sokol, here.

Spotify joins basically every other app maker in selling your data to advertisers

TechRadar, here.

Standard de la preuve et abus de position dominante : Le test du concurrent aussi efficace

Concurrences, ici.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Snowden designs device to warn when an iPhone is ratting out users

ArsTechnica, here

Truck Makers Hit With Record EU Fines for Price-Fixing in Europe

Truckinginfo.com, here

Everything is amazing — and no one at the European Commission is happy

G. Manne, here.

Personality, privacy and our digital selves

TheGuardian, here.

What's So Special about Two-Sided Markets?

B. Hermalin, M. Katz, here

Antitrust Balancing

H. Hovenkamp, here

Public Policy and Breach of Competition Law in International Arbitration: A Competition Law Practitioner's Viewpoint

D. Geradin, ici.

Reverse Payments: An EU and US Perspective

F. Maier-Rigaud, N. Bialock, O. Gannon, here.

The Theory of Abuse in Google Search: A Positive and Normative Assessment Under EU Competition Law

P. Akman, here.

Big data, small problem. Is the antitrust toolkit compatible for data?

Bird&Bird, here.

Trade and Privacy: Complicated Bedfellows

K. Irion, s. Yakovleva, M. Bartl, here.

How the internet was invented

TheGuardian, here.

La CNMC impugna el Acuerdo del Gobierno de Aragón sobre enseñanzas universitarias, que restringe la competencia en el sector universitario

CNMC, aquì.

Online booking platforms, MFN clauses: To regulate or not to regulate?

Concurrences.com, here.

vzbv mahnt Entwickler von Pokémon Go ab

vzbv, hier

Pokémon Go has revealed a new battleground for virtual privacy

Inforrm's Blog, here.

Les compagnies aériennes face au défi du Big Data

LaTribune, ici

Windows 10 : la Cnil donne 3 mois à Microsoft pour être moins intrusif

Numerama.com, ici.

When will AI bots replace virtual assistants?

Information-age, here.

"It is a paid world"

Skift, here.

EU Data Protection Law May End The Unknowable Algorithm

Popyard.com, here.

Airbnb hires ex-U.S. Attorney General to help shape anti-discrimination policy

VentureBeat, here

GAO's Patent Reports

Managingip, here

The Financial Times is testing blocking the adblockers by blocking actual words from its stories

NiemanLab, here

Thursday, July 07, 2016

Microsoft to Acquire LinkedIn: Overview for Investors

Microsoft, here

Assessing Mergers on Innovative Markets: Do we Need Innovation-Specific Methods of Analysis?

W. Kerber, Presentation here

Why is Apple so stingy about opening up the NFC API?

Reddit.com, here.


EC Commission accepts commitments by container liner shipping companies on price transparency

Pree Release, here

ReLIRE : la numérisation des livres indisponibles considérée illégale par l'Europe

ActuaLitté, ici.
Conclusions de l'AG ici.

4 Important Lessons You Can Learn Now That 3-D Printing Is Dying

Inc., here

Oracle says it is 'committed' to Java EE 8 – amid claims it quietly axed future development

TheRegister, here

Une plainte est déposée en Suisse contre Apple Pay pour abus de position dominante

LeTemps, ici.
Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz SKS hier.
NZZ, hier.
CapGemini Presentation here.
"Der Verzicht auf die Erhebung von Kundendaten werde durch höhere Umsätze ausgeglichen. Eine repräsentative Studie gibt es dazu allerdings nicht"
"Fürs Bezahlen in Anwendungen kann man auch ein iPad Pro, Air 2, mini 3 oder 4 benutzen. Wie viele davon in der Schweiz im Umlauf sind, das hätten auch Apples Partner vor dem Start gern erfahren. Doch das Unternehmen hat es ihnen nicht verraten."

"Near Field Communication (NFC) is an international standard (ISO/IEC 18092) that specifies an interface and protocol for simple wireless interconnection of closely coupled devices operating at 13.56 MHz (see http://members.nfc-forum.org/specs/spec_list/).

"Apple-Pay-Chefin Jennifer Bailey machte Twint und Co im Gespräch auch wenig Hoffnung: «Wir werden NFC nicht für Drittanbieter von Bezahldiensten öffnen – aus Sicherheits- und BedienkomfortgründenFinews Kfür Konsumentenschutzonsumentenschutz

Researchers build a smart privacy app to keep you safe

TechCrunch, here

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Scientific Proof That Buying Things Can Actually Lead To Happiness (Sometimes)

FastCompany, here.

Rebate for IoT thermostat requires that you give permission to your utility to read "all data"

BoingBoing, here.

UK Competition Law after Brexit

B. McGrath, here.

Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy - Chapter 6 Online Privacy

C. Hoofnagle, here.

How “consumer choice” can unify the fields of competition and consumer protection law

N. Averitt, here.

“Freedom of choice”: the emergence of a powerful concept in European competition law

P. Nihoul, here.

Motion pictures, markets, and copylocks

J. Hughes. here.

The 'Frightful Five' in the Market for Digital Assistants

CheatSheet, here.

EU citizens might get a ‘right to explanation’ about the decisions algorithms make

Fusion.net, here.

The Data Spectrum

ODI, here.

Comment la vente en ligne rebat les cartes de la concurrence traditionnelle

LesEchos, ici.

Online Tracking

FTC, here.

Can I block online tracking?

Consumers can learn about tracker-blocking browser plugins which block the flow of information from a computer to tracking companies and allow consumers to block ads. They prevent companies from using cookies or fingerprinting to track your internet behavior.

To find tracker-blocking plugins, type “tracker blocker” in your search engine. Then, compare features to decide which tracker blocker is best for you. For example, some of them block tracking by default, while others require you to customize when you’ll block tracking.
Remember that websites that rely on third party tracking companies for measurement or advertising revenue may prevent you from using their site if you have blocking software installed. However, you can still open those sites in a separate browser that doesn’t have blocking enabled, or you can disable blocking on those sites.

Brexit: Stay Calm - Effects on Antitrust Expected to be Limited

K & L Gates, here.

MasterCard facing £19bn damages claim over inflated card charges

TheGuardian, here.

Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Comcast will let customers get Netflix on its set-top box (which is a very big deal)

Recode, here.

Why Bigness Became a Bipartisan Cause on Capitol Hill

Time, here.

National privacy research strategy

The White House, here.

Smart Contracts, Bitcoin, and Blockchain Technology

Legaltalknetwork, Beach Podcast here.

How eBay Survived While Other Disruptive Markets Disappeared

Fortune, here.

'Learning platforms': vendors learning how to effectively collude?

Online freedom is a 'human right' that must be protected, says UN

Wired, here.

Still in celebration mood, despite the EU: my 2014 musings on the WIPO Marrakesh Treaty and the three-step test

The Quiet Old Lady Who Whispers "Fair Use"

Planet Money, Beach Podcast here.

Beschränkung von Online-Bezahldiensten durch die deutsche Kreditwirtschaft verstößt gegen das Kartellrecht

Bundeskartellamt, hier.

Car hire comparison websites issued transparency warning

TravelWeekly, here.

Kartellamt ermittelt gegen mehrere Autobauer

FAZ, hier.
"An average car contains around 900kg of steel" FT.

Call for £2 a pint cartel in town centre

.scunthorpetelegraph.co.uk, here.

Monday, July 04, 2016

South Africa: Competition complaint against Uber 'unlikely to succeed' says expert

ITWebAfrica, here.

The world’s most popular computer programs are becoming less boring

The Economist, here.

Google and Facebook also looked at buying LinkedIn

Recode, here.

EU regulations on algorithmic decision-making and a "right to explanation"


B. Goodman, S. Flaxman, here.

Visa, MasterCard $7.25 billion settlement with retailers is thrown out

Reuters, here.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Challenges for Enterprises and their Stakeholders

IndustryWeek, here.

Tirole's Industrial Regulation and Organization Legacy in Economics

D. Fudenberg, here.

Digital voice assistants: Apps-Be-Gone!

DailyTrust, here.

Partage !

LINC, Ici.

EU competition policy in action

EC, here.

Market Power and Media Revenue Allocation in Professional Sports: The Case of Formula One

O. Budzinski, A. Müller, here

Licensed to Fail

EIFL, here.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

A vocabulary for conversing about entrepreneurship, innovation, and antitrust

A. Foer, here.

First Draft! Online Platforms, Rate Parity, and the Free Riding Defence

S. Vezzoso (this blog's author), here.

Abstract: A two-sided platform business is a new type of intermediary to be found in a growing number of economic sectors. As to the hospitability industry in particular, recent innovations in the field of digital technologies prompted the rise of so called Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and the demise of the traditional merchant model.
Recently national competition authorities (NCAs) in the EU investigated so called rate parity clauses in the contracts between the three largest OTAs and their hotel partners. These are contract clauses laying down the hotelier’s obligation to display the same room prices across sales channels. The parallel investigations conducted by the NCAs revealed an array of serious anticompetitive effects stemming from rate parity obligations. While the German NCA concluded that there was insufficient evidence of the efficiency gains of these clauses, and therefore decided to prohibit them, the French, Italian and Swedish NCAs implicitly recognised that some level of protection against free-riding was necessary, and accepted commitments to reduce the scope of the rate parity obligation.
The hotel online booking cases were closely followed in the EU and beyond, since they could help clarify a number of key assessment issues concerning a category of commercial practices already widely spread in online markets. In-depth analyses of the NCAs’ findings are now needed, especially in view of the promotion of an effective antitrust-based platform regulation. In particular, this article explores some of the challenges related to the application of the traditional free-riding defence to rate parity obligations.

Yandex vs Google: Decision on Fines

FAS, here

L’Open Internet Project veut canaliser Google via la loi numérique

ITEspresso, ici.

The Gig Economy

OECD Development Centre, here

Net Neutrality Rules Will Make Winners and Losers Out of Businesses

S. Greenstein, M. Peitz, T. Valletti, here.

Hillary Clinton’s Initiative on Technology & Innovation

HillaryClinton.com, here

Google bittet Sie um mehr persönliche Daten

Heise.de, hier.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Supreme Court agrees to review ATM fee antitrust lawsuit

Bloomberg, Here.

Digital Markets, Data, and Privacy: Competition Law, Consumer Law, and Data Protection

W. Kerber, Here.

The Economics of Mergers and Innovation: The Challenge for Competition Policy with Application to Pharmaceuticals

J. Kwoka, here

Innovation as a Parameter of Competition and its Implications for Competition Law Application

J. Drexl, here

Brexit Leads U.K. Lawyers to Seek Solace in Irish Bar

Bloomberg, here

South Korea antitrust regulator says investigating Apple on 'some matters'

Reuters, here

The ultimate Brexit Song

"It Doesn't Have To Be", Erasure, Video here.

You are one side
And I am on the other
Are we divided?

You are one side
I am on the other
Are we divided?
Why can't we live together
There are no rights
This isn't your decision
We need to talk of changing things
But no one wants to listen
It doesn't have to be like that
It doesn't have to be like that
It doesn't have to be like that

A heart on the inside
The same as any other
Are we divided?
Someone always has to suffer
We are broken
There's no one left to change it
Is that the way it has to be?
Why can't we rearrange it?
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that

Alava mo ja na me me limbaniango limbaniago
Zimbabwe abo naga na me me limbaniango limbaniago
Alava mo ja na me me limbaniango limbaniago
Zimbabwe abo naga na me me limbaniango limbaniago

What is the secret
In calling me a brother?
Are we divided?
Always one against the other
We are strong now
Put down the ammunition
For what we know is right
Is gonna breakdown this division
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
(One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that (One against one)
(One against one)
It doesn't have to be like that

You are one side
And I am on the other
Are we divided?

OECD Ministerial Declaration on the Digital Economy (”Cancún Declaration”)

Here