Friday, March 08, 2024

OECD Competition Open Day 2024

 Videos here.

‘Super-apps’ and the Digital Markets Act

 

Abstract

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) aims to ensure contestability and fairness in digital markets, particularly focusing on regulating Big Tech companies. The paper explores the DMA's capacity to address both current and future challenges in digital market contestability and fairness, spotlighting the trend towards platform integration and the potential rise of "super-apps" akin to WeChat and KakaoTalk. Specifically, it investigates WhatsApp, owned by Meta, as a gatekeeper that might expand its service offerings, integrating additional functionalities like AI and metaverse technologies. The paper discusses whether the DMA's obligations, such as mandated interoperability and data portability, can mitigate the emergent risks to market fairness and contestability from such integrations. Despite recognizing that the DMA has the potential to address many issues arising from platform integration, it suggests the necessity for adaptability and a complementary relationship with traditional antitrust law to ensure sustained contestability and fairness in evolving digital markets

[Very pleased to share with you, dear @Wavesblog Reader, my first draft (short paper because I had a word limit, submitted to a journal) and thankful for any comment you might have: simonetta.vezzoso@unitn.it]

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

What Have The Consultants Ever Done For Us?

 


T. Valletti, here

Digital Platforms, Competition Law, and Regulation: Comparative Perspectives

 Open access book with many goodies, here

Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning: Understanding the Costs and Benefits

 ICO, here

Future Software Should Be Memory Safe

 White House, here

Microsoft partners with Mistral in second AI deal beyond OpenAI

 The Verge, here

Parliament's negotiating position on the standard essential patents regulation

 EP, here

The Countdown to the Google Ad Tech Trial Is On: Here’s What You Need to Know

 TechPolicy.Press, here

RemedyFest

 Video here

How OpenAI/Microsoft and other 'big tech'/ AI partnerships ended up in the antitrust hotseat in both Europe and the US

 DealCast here

Microsoft’s AI Access Principles: Kudos to the AI which wrote it

 Microsoft Blog, here.

Monday, February 26, 2024

Innovation against change

 A. McLean, here.

Microsoft announces ‘AI access principles’ to offset OpenAI competition concerns

 TechCrunch, here.

Apple on course to break all Web Apps in EU within 20 days

 OWA, here

EU seeks to investigate Apple over cutting off web apps

 FT, here

Rotten Apple

 Adactio, here

How to Think About Remedies in the Generative AI Copyright Cases

 P. Samuelson, here

Privacy Advocates Urge European Regulators to Oppose Meta’s No-Ads Subscription Model

 CPI, here

Competition Law and Innovation II

 CENTI, Podcast with T. Schrepel, here

DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning

 The Verge, here

7 changes to patch the EU’s Digital Markets Act and make open app markets a reality over Apple’s belligerent stance

GamesFray, here.  

Banking and Antitrust

 S. Omarova, G. Steele, here

Apple's App Store Compliance with the Digital Markets Act: The 7 Deadly Sins You Must Know

 Aptoide, here

Apple says it spent "tens of thousands of hours” on the DMA App Store solution after Microsoft complains

MSPowerUser, here.  

The American Schools of Antitrust

 T. Wu, here

Google Tweaked Search to Comply With EU Rules. Yelp Says It Makes Results Even More Unfair

 Wired, here

Whatsapp muss sich öffnen: Threema und Signal winken ab

 Heise.de, hier

German Court Rules Against Google in Competition Case

 Pymts, here

Helping Europe’s digital economy take off: An agenda for the next Commission

 CER, here

Reviewing Mergers Under Article 102 TFEU: Proximus/EDPnet (Belgium)

 F. Bostoen, here

In conversation with Sarah Cardell

  Cleary Gottlieb Antitrust Review podcast, here

Joint Inventorship: AI-Human Style

 Patentlyo, here

AG Kokott on Google Shopping

 Here

Data-related Obligations and Interoperability in the DMA

 CERRE, here

EPC Statement concerning Apple's compliance plans with the DMA

 Here

DOJ re Google AdTech

 PLAINTIFFS’ POST-TRIAL BRIEF, here

DMA Compliance workshops

18 March : Apple

19 March : Meta

20 March : Amazon

21 March : Alphabet

22 March : ByteDance

26 March : Microsoft

Can Telecommunications Regulation Inform Emerging Regulatory Approaches To Generative AI?: An Initial Inquiry

 D. Lawrence DOJ, here

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Friday, February 09, 2024

AI Antitrust - Yann Guthmann

 Concurrences, here

Intelligence artificielle générative : l’Autorité s’autosaisit pour avis et lance une consultation publique jusqu’au vendredi 22 mars

AdlC, ici

Commission adopts revised Market Definition Notice for competition cases

 EC, here

Morning Brew: Apple isn't playing fair

 Video here

WhatsApp Chats Will Soon Work With Other Encrypted Messaging Apps

Wired, here

In its tantrum with Europe, Apple broke web apps in iOS 17 beta, still hasn't fixed them

 The Register, here

Effective remedies in digital market abuse of dominance cases

 A. Ganesh, here

Bytedance v. EU on interim relief

GC, Order here

F.T.C. Chair Lina Khan live at the 2024 DCN: Next Summit

 Video here

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

Launch of the GW Competition & Innovation Lab

 Video here

NB: None of the academic economists mentioned that they worked for consultancies - eg Richard Gilbert for Compass Lexecon. 

Interesting to see Hans Zeng (EC) there too.

Who’s financing the whole initiative isn’t mentioned on the website. I guess no private donors then (?). The “other” dynamic competition initiative hosted in Florence is instead openly financed (also) by a consultancy. 


Letter: Europe has an unri­valled record on anti­trust

 O. Guersent, here.

The article has ruffled some feathers, while others of a similar tone have passed unnoticed. It is true, as BEUC writes, the "EU’s guiding principle has been to uphold a competition enforcement standard based on broader values including consumer choice, innovation and quality rather than simply price". However, it must also be acknowledged that in the EU the more economic approach with a very strong "industrial organization flavour" and its laser focus on prices and models (along with the array of consultancies it brings along) remains fairly dominant and has not been directly challenged from a theoretical standpoint as is happening in the US. 

EU AI Act: Next Steps for Implementation

 iapp, here

What super-apps could mean for the communications sector

 Ofcom, here. Ofcom on interoperability here

CERRE DMA Conference

 Video here

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation

 UK Government response to consultation, here

FTC Launches Inquiry into Generative AI Investments and Partnerships

 Here.

When Apple takes the European Commission for fools: An initial overview of Apple’s new terms and conditions for iOS app distribution in the EU

 D. Geradin, here

Is “More Clouds” the Future We Want? A Dispatch from the FTC AI Tech Summit

 Techpolicy.press, here

“It never hurts to read the law.”

 M. Kades, here

Foundation Models: how they are regulated in the AI ACT

 Radiobruxelleslibera, here

Caffarra's Conference 2024

 Videos here

Don’t let monopolies hold Taylor Swift’s next tour hostage

 M. Carrier, here

Large language models and generative AI

 UK Parliament, here

Oral hearing with Ofcom and the CMA here

Apple’s DMA compliance plan is a trap and a slap in the face for the European Commission

 Proton, here

Monday, January 29, 2024

Rebutting Gatekeeper Presumptions: How to Disprove Lock-in from Ecosystem and Network Effects

 TikTok Consultants, here

Readout of White House Meeting on Competition Policy and Artificial Intelligence

 Here

IMPLEMENTING THE DMA: SUBSTANTIVE AND PROCEDURAL PRINCIPLES

 CERRE, here

CRA Conference 2023

 Videos here

Automotive Services: Google reagiert auf Vorwürfe des Bundeskartellamts

 Heise.de, hier

Data Capitalism

 T. Harakka, here

Apple challenging the DMA

 Here; here

Understanding the Tradeoffs of the Amazon Antitrust Case

 C. Farronato et al., here

Overview of the CMA’s provisional approach to implement the new Digital Markets competition regime

 CMA, here

Intellectual monopolies as a new pattern of innovation and technological regime

 C. Rikap, here

Developing Dynamic Capabilities through Acquisitions

 I. Strauss, J. Yang, here

Commission seeks feedback on commitments offered by Apple over practices related to Apple Pay

 EC, here

FTC Launches Inquiry into Generative AI Investments and Partnerships

 Here

Enshittification: The Rise and Fall of Big Tech — with Cory Doctorow

 Here

FTC's Tech Summit on AI

 Video here

Remarks of Samuel Levine at the FTC’s Summit on Artificial Intelligence

 Here

When Apple takes the European Commission for fools: An initial overview of Apple’s new terms and conditions for iOS app distribution in the EU

 D. Geradin, here

Statement by Executive Vice-President Vestager on announcement by Amazon and iRobot to abandon their transaction

 Here

Monday, December 11, 2023

EU ex-ante regulation for digital gatekeepers (Digital Markets Act): State of play and way ahead

 


Slides, here

Cigna abandons pursuit of Humana, plans $10 billion share buyback, sources say - very likely because of FTC's action

 CNBC, here

Competition and Innovation: Incorporating a More Dynamic Perspective into Enforcement


This is the text of my 15-minute intervention last week at the OECD. Happy I wrote it down and read it because I was a bit overwhelmed, to be honest. Accompanying slides here

The best part, however, was the interaction we had with the OECD States/competition authorities (despite sitting very far from each other).


"Thank you immensely to the Chair and the Committee for the opportunity to be here with you today. I think that we all in this room might agree that the interplay between competition and innovation is increasingly vital in our economies, in which we all face numerous challenges in devising solutions to ever more complex problems.

These challenges are starkly highlighted by the ongoing issues surrounding climate change and the digital revolution. As we know, innovation can be the creative response that entrepreneurs make to changing conditions, to new challenges. To these entrepreneurs, “innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity - not a threat.” And we as a society, as consumers are provided with choices on how to deal with these challenges, with these changing conditions. Furthermore, the critical role of innovation has been profoundly illustrated in our emergence from the health crisis brought about by COVID-19.

In competition policy circles like this one here, innovation isn't just a buzzword we throw around to sound smart while prices and output is what antitrust law is really about. There is a profound and increasing recognition that innovation is a  real factor in shaping competitive processes and often it should be taken even more seriously than price effects in competition policy enforcement.

We are very lucky here today to stand on the shoulders of this excellent background paper prepared by the OECD Secretariat. In my brief remarks today, I will focus primarily on the highly useful distinction between the approach that focuses on innovation incentives and the approach that instead focuses on the innovation impact or innovation effects.

The clear distinction drawn between a more static and a more dynamic perspective on innovation is particularly commendable and useful. It effectively highlights the progress made in terms of competition policy so far, as well as what remains to be done, both from a theoretical standpoint and in terms of competition policy enforcement.

Both approaches have their merits and limitations, and in a certain sense, they are complementary to each other. Understanding which approach to adopt depends on the crucial assessment by competition authorities of how competition manifests itself in the specific market, sector, or industry at stake.

Is the focus on current or potential competition in identified product markets or is the focus directly on innovation processes or spaces? This differentiation, as I see it, is the real focal point of the background paper, from which the brief considerations I will present in the following emerge.

Although this differentiation is absolutely crucial and we will return to it shortly, I believe the two approaches are driven by many insights that are common to both. I will mention three of these insights here.

The first is the belief that it is possible for competition enforcers to  identify situations, markets in which innovation is a significant dimension of rivalry between companies.

The second is that a longer-term or dynamic perspective is necessary to fully grasp innovation and its relationship with competition.

The third realization or insight is that a longer-term perspective must contend with uncertainty. Here we must decidedly forego the comfort of quantifications that offer the illusion of certainty in the application of antitrust law.

I've created a table, informed by the background paper and my previous research on this topic. It outlines key differences between the two approaches, in addition to the shared insights I've just mentioned.

The first approach focuses on the circumstance that rivalry in the product market is driven by product or process innovation. The second approach, on the other hand, brings directly to the fore the innovation efforts made by competing firms.Top of Form

This is clearly evident from the background paper, to which I would only like to add the idea that it is necessary to also consider the ecosystems where the relative orchestrators appropriate and manage the innovation efforts produced by the ecosystem participants.

The following point relates to the realization that the innovation concerns in the two approaches are distinct. On one side, there is a reduction or delay in introducing new features in a product market. On the other, there's a more direct concern regarding changes to innovation levels and intensity.

The third point is a focus on financial incentives to innovate by the first approach  and on capabilities to innovate in the second.

The fourth point is that, according to the first approach, future markets can be identified in a traditional manner. In contrast, based on the second approach, it is not possible to define markets that may emerge from innovation in such conventional terms.

The fifth aspect is that for the first approach, innovation is mostly of an incremental nature, while the second approach is perhaps more oriented towards innovation that is mostly of a disruptive nature.

The sixth aspect relates to different degrees of uncertainty. For the first approach, uncertainty is linked to the fact that products have not yet entered the market or potential outcomes from innovation are not clearly identifiable. For the second, the uncertainty is more radical as it stems from the circumstance that there is high uncertainty regarding future outcomes of innovation efforts.

The seventh and final aspect concerns theories of harm. For the first approach, profit-cannibalization narratives are particularly relevant, thus analogous to unilateral price effects. Relevant are also traditional foreclosure theories, which are then adapted to an innovation context. Instead, For the impact-based approach to innovation and competition, the theories of harm aim to highlight the direct impact on innovation of a behaviour or a transaction, not merely as a consequence of a reduction in competition.

Certainly, the distinction between these two approaches is valuable for analytical clarity and for promoting theoretical and other developments, but in enforcement practice, they are often also strategically interconnected, as noted in the background document.

So, we can distinguish cases where there is a more static approach to innovation and which aligns closely with the first approach. This involves determining product markets, even if they are in the future, even if the competition is only potential, and then also relying on conventional theories of harm based for instance on a profit cannibalization rationale.

And then there are other cases where the approach to competition is more dynamic, both in terms of determining a product market or an innovation space and in terms of theories of harm.

In the final part of my reflection, I concentrate on some challenges that I still see on the horizon from the perspective of further developing this more dynamic approach to innovation.

From seven, as in the previous table, the points I would like to briefly illustrate are now eight.

The first point is that it seems to me that it’s still necessary to better conceptualize the relevant rivalry between companies as a process of innovation and knowledge creation. From this perspective, it is clear that the traditional, orthodox industrial organization thinking and approaches may provide only limited assistance. Much more useful could be economic theories that focus on innovative, dynamic processes of variation and selection, such as evolutionary economics.

I am absolutely convinced that these alternative economic conceptualizations of dynamism and competition processes should receive greater attention from antitrust enforcers. The monopolization carried out by the industrial organization in the field of so-called competition economics has so far left little room for this and other theoretical contenders or even disruptors to emerge.

The second point is that there is still a significant need to develop a better understanding of innovation capabilities, especially in sectors where innovation processes are less structured. This might be the case because, for instance, the tools of appropriation in theses sectors or market phases might be different from traditional IP rights. A different understanding of innovation capabilities might be required based on the specific type of technology/knowledge production, the specific skills required (for instance, particularly valuable AI talent), and the specialized assets needed, such as data and specific technological tools required for innovation.

The third point is that if a better understanding of innovation capabilities is essential, there are additional innovation factors beyond capabilities that require attention. These include dynamic patterns, path dependencies, absorptive capacities, technological trajectories, and so on.

The fourth point is that greater efforts may be needed in certain contexts to assess the impact of the same innovation efforts on multiple sectors (e.g., digital) – cross-market.

A fifth, more practical challenge is that in some jurisdictions, it may be necessary to clarify in the law that "market definition" under certain circumstances is not necessary, or that the market can be determined in a radically different manner from traditionally employed methods.

A sixth, more challenging point from a theoretical and analytical perspective is that it seems necessary to better understand innovation processes within ecosystems. This, for instance, requires differentiation between the production of innovation and knowledge and the mechanisms of their appropriation. This pertains to contexts and ecosystems where both incremental and disruptive innovation hold significance.

A seventh point to consider is that it would be important to incorporate concerns about the "quality" of innovation into antitrust practice, not just focusing on innovation levels and intensity. From this perspective, close collaboration with data protection authorities and, in the near future, various types of AI regulators, including sector-specific ones, could be crucial.

Last but not least, there is the challenge related to the evidence required to ultimately capture the innovation dimensions mentioned in the background note. Some are already practiced, such as portfolios of R&D activities, commercial and licensing agreements with other companies. Other evidence, for example, to assess innovation capability, may include the analysis of links to universities, participation in scientific conferences, and so on.Top of Form

If the eight challenges, taken together, may seem a bit daunting, I would suggest that antitrust authorities join forces on many common fronts. A very practical and cost-effective suggestion is that one or more antitrust authorities, from different jurisdictions, could facilitate the organization of symposia, seminars, and workshops that bring together economists (including those from non-orthodox economic schools), management experts, behavioural scientists, scientists from different fields, and technologists. These gatherings would provide a platform for cross-disciplinary collaboration, offering diverse perspectives, approaches, and knowledge to enhance the understanding of innovation processes within specific industries and sectors. They could ideally also lead to the development of new assessment tools and methodologies immediately relevant to competition policy enforcement.

Many thanks for your attention."




And as you see here, fun we had! 

EU says incoming rules for general purpose AIs can evolve over time

Natasha The Great, here.  

Behind the Clicks: Can Amazon allocate user attention as it pleases?

 R. Rock et al., here

FTC Files Amicus Brief Outlining Anticompetitive Harm Caused by Improper Orange Book Listings

 FTC, here

Open finance policy considerations

 OECD, here

Commission sends Adobe Statement of Objections over proposed acquisition of Figma

 Here

La CNMC inicia un estudio sobre los servicios de nube

 Aquì.

White Paper on the Definition of Data Intermediation Services

 T. Bobev et al., here.

The potential competition impacts of Big Tech entry and expansion in retail financial services

 FCA, here

Regulatory capture’s third face of power

 W. Y Li, here

LE NUMÉRIQUE AU SERVICE D’UN FUTUR DURABLE

 V. Blun, M. Mathon, ici

noyb files GDPR complaint against Meta over “Pay or Okay”

 Here

MEPs call to ramp up Big Tech enforcement in competition review

 Luca "The AI Hero," here

CAPITALISM RECONNECTED: Toward a Sustainable, Inclusive and Innovative Market Economy in Europe

 J. P. Balkenende, G. Buijs, here

The future of Europe’s data economy

 Economist (sponsored by Microsoft), here

Cyber resilience act: Council and Parliament strike a deal on security requirements for digital products

 Council, here

Generative AI could revolutionize health care — but not if control is ceded to big tech

 Nature, here

Shaping Europe's digital model Building Alliances for a Progressive European Vision

 Video here

Urgent Binding Decision 01/2023 requested by the Norwegian SA for the ordering of final measures regarding Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd (Art. 66(2) GDPR)

 EDPB, here

Commission adopts antitrust Guidelines for sustainability agreements in agriculture

 Here

Public Workshop on the DOJ/FTC Draft Merger Guidelines

 Video here.

Intellectual monopolies as a new pattern of innovation and technological regime

 C. Rikap, here

Press conference following the trilogue on artificial intelligence

 European Council, here

Open, Sovereign, Independent AI: Europe’s greatest challenge?

F. Bria, here.  And Transforming capitalism in the Age of AI

Protection des données et concurrence : une ambition commune

 Adlc, ici

Saturday, December 02, 2023

On innovation and competition at the OECD: happy to help, if I can!



I was only once at the OECD before - as an observer (the topic was Big Data, with Annabelle Gawer and Hal Varian, great fun - my take here).

Next time soon (and determined to enjoy myself, whatever). 

Some of the work I've done specifically on this topic (although I stealthily applied evolutionary/innovation arguments in almost everything I wrote):


 

P.S. This topic is particularly dear to me. My interest for it started 30+ y. ago, as a young legal scholar in Milan. After many difficult and depressing years with my mentor at that time, Prof. Denozza, who didn’t understand/support my research interest for this topic and actually hampered me from pursuing it, I wrote to him that I was quitting his School (call it “Family”) to continue my research in Germany, where I did a PhD in economics on the topic of this week’s discussion in Paris (BTW, losing the support of Prof. Denozza's powerful Academic Family totally ruined my academic prospects in Italy but made me who I am. Reminder: Italy is a country in which you might even become a Competition Commissioner - especially if your father is a good friend of a former neo-fascist who happens to be the President of the Senate - not to mention becoming the AI Chief Technological Strategist because you love potatoes recipes

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Conceptions of innovation in the DMA

 S. Makris, Video here

Read also Where EU Competition Law and DMA Meet: Innovation Competition – Part I, here

FTC v. Amazon

 Explained by a *customer*, Video  here

Trying to make sense of how all the new chapters in the EU’s digital rulebook

 EDPS, here

Techtonic: The artist suing AI giants

 Article 19, Podcast here

Internet Fatta a Pezzi

 Video qui

Oversight of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division

 Memo, here

Digital Markets Act: Opportunity engine for startups [Hosted by DG Connect - European Commission]

 Web Summit, here

Web Summit 2023: Discussing AI right away (an the AI Act)

 Here (at 41:20). 

Apple Set to Challenge DMA's designations

 Bloomberg, here

Apple says it ‘expects to make’ App Store policy changes due to EU DMA

 TechCrunch, here

FS2/23 – Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

 Bank of England, here

Digital Market Act designations: the interoperability of Google Android

 F. Scott Morton, here

Licensing high-risk artificial intelligence: Toward ex ante justification for a disruptive technology

 G. Malgieri, F. Pasquale, here

The extraterritorial implications of the Digital Services Act

 DSA Observatory, here

Data Impact: LES USAGES DES DONNÉES AU SERVICE DE LA TRANSITION ÉCOLOGIQUE

Etude, ici; Inventaire des cas d'usage, ici

What Antitrust Experts Want You to Know About the Amazon Trial

 ProMarket, here

The FTC Lawsuit Against Amazon Is the Biggest Antitrust Fight of Our Time

 The Nation, here

Lina Khan in the Lions' Den

Federalist Society, Video, here

New Vision – the DMA, Goals of Antitrust, Compliance

 Olivier Guersent chez Oles, here

Big Tech on Trial: Is Google’s Reckoning Finally Here?

 M. Stoller, here

A Deeper Look into the EU AI Act Trilogues: Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments, Generative AI and a European AI Office

 Kluwer Competition Law Blog, here

Epic v. Google: everything we’re learning live in Fortnite court

 The Verge, here

Wednesday, November 08, 2023

Artificial Intelligence Summit

 Video, here

FTC Approves Final Order Resolving Antitrust Concerns Surrounding ICE, Black Knight Deal

 Here

Google turns to regulators to make Apple open up iMessage

 The Verge, here

G7 Competition Authorities and Policymakers’ Summit Digital Competition Communiqué: Commitment to Address Competition Concerns Arising from Emerging Technologies


 Here

Compendium of approaches to improving competition in digital markets, here

Inventory of ex-ante rules, here

Analytical note on the inventory, here

Governance of foundation models in EU’s AI law starts to take shape

 Luca "Magnus," here

The FTC on copyright and Generative AI

 Here.

"We can't wait for the DMA obligations to be complied with!"

 30 price comparison websites, here




FTC Chair Lina Khan on AI regulation, startup acquisitions, and more

 Y Combinator, here

Monday, November 06, 2023

Is Antitrust policy good for innovation? Yes, amazingly so.

 Lina Khan, Video here

AN EFFECTIVE CHOICE SCREEN UNDER THE DIGITAL MARKETS ACT

 BEUC, here

The Rise of Ecosystem Theories: Where are we after Microsoft/Activision and Booking/etraveli?

 Video, here

Booking / eTraveli: assessing envelopment strategies and mixing up market power thresholds

 D. Mandrescu, here

The EU’s sense for the metaverse

 Euractiv, Podcast here

AI’s proxy war heats up as Google reportedly backs Anthropic with $2B

 TechCrunch, here

U.S. and Plaintiff States v. Google LLC [2020] - Never Stop Giving Trial Exhibits

 Here

OMI on Artificial Intelligence and Copyright

Here.  

16th Annual FTC Microeconomics Conference

 Videos here

FTC v. Amazon, unredacted

Here.  

Meta and Amazon settle UK antitrust probes over use of third-party data to benefit marketplaces

 TechCrunch, here

14 big landlords used software to collude on rent prices, DC lawsuit says

 ArsTechnica, here. Complaint here

Letter From Chair Khan to Rep. Tiffany Regarding Merger Challenges

 Here