Saturday, October 08, 2016

Machine logic: our lives are ruled by big tech's 'decisions by data'

J. Powles, here.

HH Datenschutzbeauftragte rät davon ab, WhatsApp zu verwenden-und empfiehlt alternative Anbieter

Heise.de, hier.

Facebook and the Economics of Privacy and Big Data

Oliver Budzinski, Guest Lecture, 14 October 2016, 8.45 AM, Room 3C – Department of Economics and Management, Trento University.
Presentation here.

Google's Hardware Push Is All About AI

FastCompany, here.

European Commission signals Antitrust Enforcement Actions in the E-Commerce Sector

Cleary Gottlieb, here.

Platformes et accès aux contenus audiovisuels

Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel, Ici.

Big Data and Competition Policy: An Introduction and a Few Myths

A. Grunes, M. Stucke, here.

Recalibrating Patent Venue

C. Chien, M. Risch, here.

15 questions from consumers on copyright

EUIPO, here.

What can EU competition law do for speed skaters?

LeidenLawBlog, here.

Big data, smart enforcement

BEUC, here.

Strengthening Competition: Innovation, Collaboration and Transparency

J. Pecman, here.

Facebook/WhatsApp data swap deal being probed by Spanish agency

IndianExpress, here.

L'éditeur de logiciels Nexedi assigne Apple au tribunal de commerce de Paris

Challenges.fr, ici.

Google researchers aim to prevent AIs from discriminating

TechCrunch, here.

Verizon will soon start selling data plans for drones

TheVerge, here.

Apple mysteriously banned a popular app from its App store ... and a lot of programmers are mad

BusinessInsider, here.

Monetizing car data

McKinsey.de, here.

An in-depth analysis of how Expedia converts visitors into customers

EconConsultancy, Part One here.

Thursday, October 06, 2016

Patent Assertion Entity Activity

FTC, here.

Only 146 pages, actually

I have seen the future of the Internet: Millions of rogue fridges will render it unusable

G. Moody, here

Protecting Privacy for Broadband Consumers

FCC, here

Big Data Rights: Let's Get Together

EDPS, here

The Pros and Cons of the Sharing Economy

Seminar in Stockholm staged by the Swedish Competition Authority on Friday 11 November, programme here, webcast here.

Neue Behörde soll Google bändigen

Handelsblatt, hier

Google's AI Plans Are A Privacy Nightmare

W. Turton, here

Echanges d’information : nouvelles frontières

Concurrences, ici.

Sabotaging the Competition: Lessons from Intel

M. Sonwinsky, Video here.

When Algorithms Decide What You Pay

ProPublica, here

Effectiveness of the purely turnover-based jurisdictional thresholds of the EU Merger Regulation

EC, Evaluation Roadmap, here

The Rise of the Machines – How Automated Digital Assistants Can Reduce Competition (and the Cash in Your Wallet)

A. Ezrachi, M. Stucke, here.

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

Software patents are deadweight loss to economy, says Federal Circuit

WorldIPReview, here.

Life After Android: The Battle Of The Platforms Heats Up

Forbes, here.

Market Study Online Video Streaming Platforms

ACM, Video Here.

Well, these online platforms have been around for a while already, but it's true that they're continously evolving. In fact, it's tough to produce a market study in this area that isn't at least partly outdated while the ink is barely dry on it.

Amazon bans reviews based on free or discounted products

ArsTechnica, here.

Bibliography of Materials Relevant to the Interaction of Competition Policy, Big Data and Personal Data

C. Ritter, here.

The US no longer controls the address book for the Internet

Wired, here.

Free Trade Agreements Should Promote Generic Competition, Speakers Say At WTO

IP-Watch, here

Accelerating the Internet of Things in the UK: Using policy to support practice

RAND, here.
"...the survey results highlight that there is a strong
perception that consumers should be in control of their personal data at all times, signalling a distinctive move towards individuals themselves acting as their own ‘data controllers’."

Seedy business: Patent war looms over Europe’s crop diversity

Politico.eu, here

Enhancing competition in retail

R. Sims, here

Avec Marketplace, Facebook déclare officiellement la guerre à LeBonCoin

Numerama, ici

Révolution cartographique ?

Arte, Le dessous des cartes, Vidéo ici

Amazon Bets Big on India's Busiest Shopping Season

Bloomberg, here

Google invents a Touch Gesture System Designed Specifically for Future Smart Garments

Patentlyapple.com, here

Mergers would cut ‘Big 6’ to ‘Big 4’

Iowafarmertoday, here

A Grand Bargain to Make Tech Companies Trustworthy

J. Balkin, J. Zittrain, here

What The Rise And Stall Of Pokemon Go Can Teach Creative Marketers

Fastcocreate.com, here

Peut-on revendre la copie de sauvegarde d'un logiciel ? Réponse de la CJUE le 12 octobre

NextImpact, ici. . 

Monday, October 03, 2016

Salesforce Will Press Two Big Points in LinkedIn Antitrust Fight

thestreet.com, here.

The Netflix library has collapsed 50% in total title count since 2012

Exstreamist, here  

Online sales of posters and frames

CMA, Decision, here.

'Maintaining good relationships with customers is a legitimate objective, however where such an objective is achieved by means of an anti- competitive arrangement, that arrangement can be regarded as having an anti-competitive object.'

'Repricing software is normally used by online
sellers to compete with other online sellers by automatically adjusting
the prices of their products in response to the live prices of competitors’
products...However, in the present case the repricing software was
configured by the Parties to restrict price competition between them in
order to give effect to the Infringing Agreement'.

Fighting bid rigging in public procurement

Report on implementing the OECD Recommendation, here

Geographic market definition across national borders

OECD Background Paper, here. 

PCW Report

UK Regulators Network, here.
Letter to the CMA, here.
Notes from an acedemic seminar, here

Indirect Evidence in Cartel Cases

J. Kloub, Presentation here

Filmmakers Stealing From Painters: 20 Examples of Films That “Remixed” a Painting

Mentorless, here

Survey and data gathering to support the evaluation of the Satellite and Cable Directive 93/83/EEC and assessment of its possible extension

Study prepared for the European Commission, here.

Exploring Data Portability

The White House, here

Friday, September 30, 2016

Boehringer ordered to turn over documents in antitrust probe

Reuters, here.

55 percent of online shoppers start their product searches on Amazon

Recode, here

Movie Piracy and Displaced Sales in Europe: Evidence from Six Countries

B. Herz, K. Kiljański, here

Schär­fere Fusi­ons­kon­trolle für Internet-Unter­nehmen geplant

LTO.de, hier

Wer im Netz Milliarden mit unseren Daten macht

FutureZone.at, hier

A robot could get you the cheapest energy deal - forever

Aol, here

REALITY CHECK: THE REGULATORY LANDSCAPE FOR VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY

A. Hobson, here

Cartel bosses must be prosecuted

Iol.co.za, here

Networks of Control: A Report on Corporate Surveillance, Digital Tracking, Big Data & Privacy

W. Christl, S. Spiekermann, here

Facebook’s privacy head attacks ‘negative’ views around its use of WhatsApp data

MarketingWeek, here

Geo-blocking: BEUC Position Paper

Wer haftet, wenn selbstfahrende Autos Unfälle bauen?

FAZ, hier

Commissioner: UK 'must avoid data protection Brexit'

BBC, here.

Can a competition policy Brexit be avoided?

HP issues non-apology for blocking third-party ink cartridges

TechCrunch, here

Novel But a Long Time Coming: The Bundeskartellamt Takes on Facebook

R. McLeod, here

Vestager says EU may review small but data-rich M&A deals

Reuters, here

An Algorithm Gives This 3D-Printed Table Countless Permutations

FastCompany, here

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Why almost everyone who tries to build an MSP business fails

R. Schmalensee, Audio here

Salesforce Is Said to Question Microsoft-LinkedIn Deal in Europe

NYTimes, here.

Learning to trust artificial intelligence systems

IBM, here.

Connect Peers

Deloitte, here

'Partnership on AI' formed by Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft

TheGuardian, here

What Facebook Knows About You

ProPublica, here

Opinion on coherent enforcement of fundamental rights in the age of big data

EDPS, here

Big Data individual rights and enforcement

G. Buttarelli, here.

Pokémon Go menacé par les sculpteurs et architectes

Numerama, ici.

Tech Giants Team Up To Devise An Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence

FastCompany, here.

Principal syndicat professionnel du secteur du mannequinat et 37 agences: entente

Autorité de la concurrence, Décision ici.

EU’s Vestager ‘Exploring’ Need to Probe Deals With Valuable Data

Bloomberg, here.

Big Data and Competition

M. Vestager, here.

CMA launches study into digital comparison tools

CMA, here. Statement of scope, here.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Market Definition in Online Markets: Mission Impossible?

P. Akman, Presentation here

Vertical Restraints and e-Commerce: The Divergence of Economic Analysis and Competition Enforcement

K.-U. Kuehn, here

Uber, competition and regulation

D. Geradin, Presentation here

The European Commission extends its settlement procedure to abuse of dominance cases under Article 102 TFEU

White & Case, here

Why data is the new coal

TheGuardian, here

Fintech: The Regulatory Risks & Opportunities

Mlexmarketinsight.com, here

Neuer Ordnungsrahmen für den Wettbewerb in einer digitalisierten Welt

bmwi.de, hier,

How I Changed My Mind on Intellectual Property

FEE.org, here

Taxi and private hire regulation: CMA letter to City of Sheffield

CMA, here.

Using Behavioral Economics and Field Experiments To Make The World A Better Place

Vienna Behavioral Economics Network, here

Facebook and Google: most powerful and secretive empires we've ever known

TheGuardian, here.   

Italian Privacy watchdog probing WhatsApp

Ansa, here.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017

WEF, here.

Facebook darf WhatsApp-Daten nicht nutzen

Tagesspiegel, hier.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Amazon Says It Puts Customers First. But Its Pricing Algorithm Doesn’t.

ProPublica, here

Consolidation and Competition in the U.S. Seed and Agrochemical Industry

US Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, written testimonies here.

U.S. – E.U. Convergence: Can We Bridge the Atlantic?

M. Ohlhausen, here

Competition as Fair Process – the shared language of popular and expert antitrust

R. Hesse, here

Federalberghi: Booking "vìola palesemente le regole"

Corrierecomunicazioni.it, qui.

Competition for a Fairer Society

M. Vestager, here.

"Here in the United States, the Council of Economic Advisors has warned about the risks of markets that are increasingly dominated by a few large companies".

Commissioner Vestager on Recode Decode

Podcast, here.



Monopolkommission: Hauptgutachten XXI - Wettbewerb 2016

Hier.

Zentralvermarktung in der Fußball-Bundesliga S. 80 ff.
Digitale Märkte: Sharing Economy und FinTechs S. 363 ff.

Libre installation des notaires

Autorité de la concurrence, ici

Google Steps Up Travel Presence With Trip-Planning App

Bloomberg, here

Monopolkommission: Airbnb und Fintechs nicht überregulieren

FAZ, hier

Commission fines ARA €6 million for hindering competition on Austrian waste management market

EC, here

Monday, September 19, 2016

Daten ohne Schutz: WhatsApp überschreitet rote Linie

vzbv, hier

Bundeskartellamt hat keine Einwände gegen App-basiertes Girokonto der Sparkassen

Bundeskartellamt, hier.

"Die gemeinsame Vereinbarung der Sparkassen darüber, die Basisversion des App-Kontos kostenlos anzubieten, könnte eine wettbewerbsbeschränkende Vereinbarung darstellen...Im Rahmen seines Aufgreifermessens hat das Bundeskartellamt entschieden, kein Verfahren gegen die teilnehmenden Sparkassen einzuleiten. Das gemeinsame Vorgehen der Sparkassen erscheint in diesem Fall gerechtfertigt, da so insbesondere auch kleinere Institute die Möglichkeit haben, über die App Neukunden zu gewinnen. Darüber hinaus erscheint es in dem derzeitigen Marktumfeld unumgänglich, die Basisversion eines App-Kontos kostenfrei anzubieten, so dass die Vereinbarung – wenn überhaupt – den Wettbewerb nur geringfügig beschränkt."

Salesforce Einstein delivers artificial intelligence across the Salesforce platform

TechCrunch, here

More on Lundbeck v Commission: some comments on the comments #ourreadersask

P. Ibanez Colomo, here

Do no harm, don't discriminate: official guidance issued on robot ethics

TheGuardian, here.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Japan report finds Apple, Google hinder app sales competition

Nikkei, here

Grenzüberschreitende Nutzung von digitalen Inhalten erleichtern

vzbv, hier

La blockchain dans les industries créatives : peut-on accroître la transparence tout en préservant la vie privée des utilisateurs ?

LINC, ici

Opérations de visite et saisie inopinées dans le secteur de la fabrication et la distribution des sandwichs

Autorité de la concurrence, ici

Experiments in Intellectual Property

C. Buccafusco, C. Sprigman, here.

"Inventing a new pharmaceutical or producing a movie takes years of intellectual effort. The creativity that researchers can study in the laboratory, however, may involve minutes or even seconds".

General Court’s pay for delay judgment in Lundbeck – some guidance, but worries remain

S. Gallasch, here

Artificial Intelligence: The Economic and Policy Implications

S. Athey, Video here

The Commission’s proposed TDM exception: Who’s to benefit?

M. Caspers, here

Data Ownership and Access to Data

Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Position Statement, here

Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People: Implementation Guidance

The White House, here.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

EU court confirms Thomson Reuters coding settlement

...Reuters, here.

T-76/14, here.

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.

Saturday, September 03, 2016

Creative Commons Wants To Step Into Lawsuit Over Definition Of 'Noncommercial' In A CC License

TechDirt, here.

Is a big Google search update happening? Chatter thinks so

SearchEngineLand, here.

ICANN’s globalization creates peril and promise

TechCrunch, here.

CCI rejects ‘predatory pricing’ allegations against Ola

IndianExpress, here.

Nintendo’s DMCA-backed quest against online fan games

ArsTechnica, here.

Should You Become a Platform?


M. Van Alstyne and M. Jamison, here (p.30 ff.).

Chatbots are a creation channel for storytelling

VentureBeat, here.

Apple, Ireland and the Spanish connection

rte.ie, here.

EC on Pokémon Go and data protection

Ein "Reinheitsgebot für ehrliche und vertrauenswürdige Internetdienste".

Heise.de, hier.

EU-Kommission überprüft WhatsApp-Übernahme durch Facebook

Focus.de, hier.

Thursday, September 01, 2016

Niantic responds to Senate inquiry into Pokémon Go privacy

TechCrunch, here.
Letter here.

AI Wants to Be Your Bro, Not Your Foe

MIT Technology Review, here.
One Hundred Year Study 2016 here.

Development of the audiovisual markets and creation of original contents

Lear for Mediaset, here

Entgelt für Online-Übermittlung von Tickets ist unzulässig

Heise.de, hier

Elsevier’s New Patent for Online Peer Review Throws a Scare Into Open-Source Advocates

Chronicle, here

Visa seeks bank volunteers for blockchain-based payment trial

Finextra, here.

Maybe you don’t have as much choice as you think

TheGuardian, here

Online tool allows users to inspect banks’ privacy notices

iapp, here

Neue Regelungen im BuchPrG zur Preisbindung von E-Books und zur grenzüberschreitenden Preisbindung

Preisbindungsgesetz.de, hier

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

DoJ Sues to Block Deere’s Acquisition of Precision Planting

PR, here.

Companies are making money from our personal data – but at what cost?

TheGuardian, here

More EU copyright "leaks"

Draft Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market, here.
Draft Communication: Promoting a fair and efficient European copyright-based economy in the Digital Single Market, here.

Still to come:
Directive and Regulation to ensure EU implementation of the Marrakech Treaty.

Big Data Is Nudging You

PsychologyToday, here.

Quand Pokémon Go inquiète l’armée française

Numerama, ici.

Frank Ocean, Apple Music, And The Headache Of Streaming Exclusives

FastCompany, here.

Intellectual Property, Antitrust, and the Rule of Law: Between Private Power and State Power

A. Katz, 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.


Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Seeking customer centricity: The omni business model

KPMG, here

Digitalisierung – Herausforderungen für die Wettbewerbspolitik

M. Blatter, hier

Authors, Attribution, And Integrity: Examining Moral Rights In The United States

Symposium Transcript, here

Protecting privacy in genomic databases

MIT News, here..

In copyright law, computers and robots don’t count

J. Grimmelmann, here

Tax incidence on competing two-sided platforms: Lucky break or double jeopardy

P. Belleflamme, E. Toulemonde, here. S. also ici.

Mozilla beteiligt sich an dem Privacy-by-Design Browser Cliqz

Soeren-hentzschel.at, hier

Happy 25th birthday to the World Wide Web

"On August 23, 1991, new users outside of CERN were invited to join the web, marking its official anniversary, or Internaut Day."

98 personal data points that Facebook uses to target ads to you

Washington Post, here.

How Digital Copyright Law Is Being Used to Run Roughshod Over Repairs

NBC, here.

Google keeps ex-Googlers close by investing in their startups

Recode, 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"