Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Cloud Portability and Interoperability under the EU Data Act: Dynamism versus Equivalence

 S. Ennis, B. Evans, here

RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE DATA ACT

 Verbraucherzentrale, here

Microsoft / Activision deal prevented to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming

 CMA, who else?, here. Inquiry page with many things to read here

EU plans allow Big Tech to exploit your medical records, without permission

 EU Observer, here

Guidelines on exclusionary abuses by dominant undertakings: the 45 submissions to the public consultation

 EC, here

How the Commission outsourced its merger policy to Google’s best friend

 Corporate Europe, here

Cloud services market study

 OFT, Interim Report here; Annexes 5 to 8, here; marker research, here; Proposal to make a market investigation reference, here

Amazon Joins Microsoft, Google in AI Race Spurred by ChatGPT

 WSJ, here

Avviata istruttoria nei confronti di Enel per possibile abuso di posizione dominante nel settore della mobilità elettrica

 AGCM, qui

Commission prolongs Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation and updates the Supplementary Guidelines

 EC, here

Open the black box of algorithms

 ECAT, Video here

Proposed commitments regarding changes to Google Play’s rules to allow certain app developers to use alternative billing systems for in-app purchases

 CMA, here

Epic v. Apple

 US Court of Appeals, here

Beyond the Consumer Welfare Standard?

 Stigler Conference, Day one here; Day two here

23 recommendations for fair and people-centered virtual worlds in the EU

 EC, here

Microsoft agrees to stop bundling Teams with Office

 FT, here

Interoperability of messaging services under the Digital Markets Act: a “technologists ’ paradise”?

 S. Vezzoso, here

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

 UK Government Bill, here

ChatGPT : un beau parleur bien entraîné

 LINC, ici

“SORRY IN ADVANCE!”

 Public Citizen, here

Google Head of Competition EMEA: Is the DMA a Challenge or an Opportunity? Interview

 Chez Oles, here

Enforcing the DSA: Online talk with Irene Roche Laguna

 SNV, here

Value extraction and institutions in digital capitalism: Towards a law and political economy synthesis for competition law

 I. Lianos, here

Structuring a Structural Presumption for Merger Review

 F. Lancieri, T. Valletti, here

Joint Public Letter to EU lawmakers on patients' rights in the European Health Data Space

 EDRI, here

Confronting tech power

 AINOW, here

South Korea Fines Google $32 Million for Squeezing Out Local Rival

 WSJ, here

Surprising, Inexplicable, and “A Little Bit Scary”

 A. Bedoya, here. Video here

Meta-Within Should Be Viewed in the Context of Meta’s Broader Efforts To Monopolize Social Networking

 B. Nye, here

Stacking up the Benefits: Lessons from India’s Digital Journey

 IMF, here

Probe started for abuse of economic dependence by Meta towards SIAE

 AGCM, here

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Monday, March 27, 2023

Microsoft’s Battle with AI Companies: Data Restrictions Loom Over Rival Search Engines

 BigTechWire, here

Commission announces Guidelines on exclusionary abuses and amends Guidance on enforcement priorities

 EC, here

IS CREDIT SCORING AN AUTOMATED DECISION? – THE OPINION OF THE AG PIKAMÄE IN THE CASE C-634/21

 Digital Constitutionalist, here

The Age of AI has begun

 B. Gates, here.

Compare with B. Gates, The Internet Tidal Wave (1995), here

The Metaverse: Surveillant Physics, Virtual Realist Governance, and the Missing Commons

 A. McStay, here

Spinning Amazon’s Flywheel: How Amazon's business model harms competition -- A view from Europe

 Geradin Partners, here

CMA narrows scope of concerns in Microsoft – Activision review

 CMA, here

Is the Effects-Based Approach Too Cumbersome?: Taking Stock of Recent Practice and Case Law on Article 102 TFEU

 F. Castillo de la Torre, here

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Right to repair: Commission introduces new consumer rights for easy and attractive repairs

 EC, here

Consumer protection: enabling sustainable choices and ending greenwashing

 EC, here

GOOGLE-OSTACOLI ALLA PORTABILITÀ DEI DATI: impegni proposti

 AGCM, qui

Post-EC Technical Workshop on Messaging Interoperability: What Stakeholders are Saying

 Matrix, here

Carl Schwan, here

Firefox, here

J. Blessing, R. Anderson, here

J. Len et al., here

Chatbots, deepfakes, and voice clones: AI deception for sale

 FTC, here

Making sense of NCAs’ roles under the DMA – The Dutch proposal

 The Platform Law blog, here

Wettbewerb und Nachhaltigkeit in Deutschland und der EU

 HHU-Zukunftsgruppe Competition & Sustainability, hier

FTC Seeks Comment on Business Practices of Cloud Computing Providers that Could Impact Competition and Data Security

 FTC, here

Friday, March 10, 2023

Architectural options for messaging interoperability

 E. Rescorla, here.

Proposed Digital India Act 2023

 Presentation here.

The Great Antitrust Retreat: Why We Should Worry About the New Commission’s Statement of Objections to Apple

 O. Borgogno, here

Falling costs of AI may leave its power in hands of a small group - Start-ups will find it harder to challenge main industry players

 FT, here (and here). 

FTC Seeks Public Comment on Franchisors Exerting Control Over Franchisees and Workers

 Here

ChatGPT and the AI Act

 N. Helberger, N. Diakopoulos, here

Understanding Social Media Recommendation Algorithms

 A. Narayanan, here

Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

 Platformer, here

UK merger control in 2023

 CMA, here

"Towards the Artificial Intelligence Act"

 EDPS, here

Thursday, March 09, 2023

WhatsApp would not remove end-to-end encryption for UK law, says chief

 The Guardian, here

Code of Conduct on Data Sharing in Tourism

 T. Breton introduces, here

U.S., EU kick off AI research collaboration

 Axios, here

Brazil central bank greenlights Meta's WhatsApp merchant payment system

 Reuters, here

Justice Department’s Suit to Block JetBlue’s Proposed Acquisition of Spirit

 D. Mekki, here

How we Build Platforms

 M. Nottingham, here

Android’s new OEM rules in India swap “requirements” with “revenue sharing”

 Ars Technica, here

The signal of compliance

 R. Horning, here

Exploring Global Enforcement Trends

 OECD Open Day 2023, here

An Excessive Evidentiary Burden Sunk the FTC’s Case Against the Meta/Within Merger

 S. Salop, here

Early thoughts on regulating generative AI like ChatGPT

 Brookings, here

ACTUAL POTENTIAL COMPETITION: FTC V. META/WITHIN COURT VALIDATES ODD-SOUNDING THEORY

 S. Cernak, here

Alexa, what happened?

 R. Roy, here

Reclaiming The Antitrust Law Of Potential Competition Mergers

 H. Hovenkamp, here

Draft guidance on the application of the Chapter I prohibition in the Competition Act 1998 to environmental sustainability agreements

 CMA, here

Creative destruction in digital ecosystems revisited

Hausfeld, here.  

The risk of Microsoft owning the operating system for digital economy

 Euractiv, here

Yale’s Tobin Center Assembles Leading Economists to Tackle Digital Market Regulation

 Yale, here

A Triple Shift for competition policy

 M. Vestager, here

Sustainable industries through digital supply chains?

 HIIG, here

National Cybersecurity Strategy

 The White House, here

The internet is about to get a lot safer

 MIT Technology Review, here

Expanding ecosystems of digital platform service providers

 ACCC, Issues Paper here

CMA Economic Research Strategy

 CMA, here

Monday, March 06, 2023

Second EU Technical Workshop, on interoperability of messaging services: The Recording

 Here (the Italian lady continuously touching her hair and being allergic to reading her speech like almost everybody else did it's yours truly!)

Third EU technical workshop: The DMA and app store related provisions

 My Tweets: 

Starting soon! #DMA #participatoryimplementation #tweetingwave

App Stores in the #DMA : much to say! @VRobCompLawImage
Art 5(4) DMA an "anti-anti-steering provision" 
Art 5(5) corollary to Art 5(4) - focusing on end users
@VRobCompLaw (Kindle on my mind...) 
Art 5(7) inter alia promoting innovation in ancillary (as Vicky calls them) services... 
Compliance report key, of course - last week we discussed *a lot* the reference offer instead 
Vanessa @beuc : streaming, price matters a lot to consumers, a survey showed - lack of transparency is one of the issues - (BTW, anti-circumvention as the Star Provision so far) 
When is the "end user acquired"? 
Provisions considered in isolation, concrete risk of abuse being shifted somewhere else @Spotify 
[Can't help thinking about "The Playlist" - am I the only one?]Image
Throwing sand into the gears of interoperability - yep, real risk... 
FRAND + anticircumvention [a bit like reference offer + anticircumvention with regard to Article 7 - we proposed an internal dispute resolution mechanism last week as part of the "blessed" reference offer] 
Great seeing representatives of competitive app stores in the audience - and immediately discussing interoperability! 
[Yes, Vanessa: Student just wrote a thesis on deceptive/dark patterns - and it's really scary!] 
App developer: "we all agree that the past is the past". In the future, how can we make ensure that smaller developers can profit from a trusted environment? 
Huge incentives for gatekeepers still to provide app stores under the DMA - oh yeah, and Hayek would agree (wrote about it in WuW research.owlit.de/document/5ef7f…)
App developers' incentives to provide privacy and security 🤔- choice to continue with the app store but you'd have the *choice* as an app developer #DMAisaboutchoice printed on my new T-shirt 
Alternative OSs! Yes, let's talk about future frictions - but also learning from the past 
Compliance reports should be live documents if you ask me... 
Yes, juicy technical questions -luckily, last weeks we had other panels taking care of those 😊 
Keynote from a NCA @AutoriteitCM - yes, involve them #participatoryimplementation forward looking 
"The gatekeepers are going to be regulated companies" - banking provides good lessons, indeed! 
"Effective compliance" is not only legal compliance - continuous process 👏 
"Details matter" - avoiding friction is key here. Consult specialists, consumer groups, behavioural psychologists 
Cooperation among digital regulators - Inspired by the UK, inspired by Giovanni Buttarelli - why is it still taking so long, the naive mind is asking? 
I asked Martijn @AutoriteitCM online what the most effective things are that the NCAs could concretely do to make the DMA work as the legislator intended - no time/no choice. Idea 🤔... seconding staff with more regulatory experience, for instance? 
"Outside the app": web based apps, sideloading and alternative app stores @kraemer_ 
Art 6(4) - Art 5(7) - Art 6(3) - Art 6(7) - provisions not to be implemented in isolation #obligationsarenotislands 
"Unprecedented change in the regulatory framework" @Apple 
"Necessary steps": discuss. 
"New world of alternative distribution* @Apple - in the service of European citizens, ultimately benefitting them [Non-EU consumers wondering why they are excluded from these benefits, at some point 🤔?] 
Third-party stores: what do they need? Fair competition based on trust [apply EU rules already there; essential, useful security prompts; no extra fees], etc.] 
"Web apps need to be just apps" 
No gatekeeper should be entitled to decide what security, privacy, etc. look like. 
Source code for effective review - with no dual/triple role (making a cut; own apps) - [Q.: how on earth are we still be discussing whether mobile ecosystems are totally flawed or not? The legislator has decided they are, we have rules that should be implemented - full stop] 
[Lively discussion on Mastodon as well] 
We are at the beginning of this process, months and years to come, says @Apple - well, the EU legislator has set the pace, for gatekeepers to comply 
Coming up, hopefully, a more "all hands on deck" panel discussion on how to properly implement those provisions - in Rupprecht @ruppe_p we trust. 
What are the conditions of access as of Article 6(12)? ✅
What is FRAND? The DMA might help✅Image
COM AssessmentImage
Separating fees, creating transparency, based on hard data, etc., so difficult? We'll see... 
The importance of data, reminds @SchibstedGroup - access to data - compliant with the GDPR. 
The importance of engineers talking to engineers - agreed, @Google 
Where does the value sit, both for app developers and the app marketplace providers? 
One q in sli.do "Should analysis of "value" include the value that GKs derive from the presence of apps in their stores? inc value of data collected and how it is used by GKs?" and, I would add, also in terms of profiting from "innovation disclosure"?
Well, associations should disclose whether they get financing from potential gatekeepers. I did disclose that I wrote a study for a MEP. 
My Q: "How would Prof. Podszum envisage that the EC could involve third parties when assessing FRAND conditions ("as part of safety net, as he pointed out")? 
Thank you for the answer, Rupprecht - agreed, many tables! @ruppe_p