A Definition of Platforms with Meaningful Policy Implications

While the term “platform” is ubiquitous in everyday language, its precise definition in the context of topics related to competition, policy and antitrust still remains ambiguous. This arguably for technical reasons which are trivial to grasp but seemingly difficult to communicate en masse. When political leaders take aim at regulating “platforms,” precisely which types of services are they talking about? Do Microsoft’s platforms warrant the same attention from regulators as Meta’s or Alphabet’s? Technically, what distinguishes one from the other and what are the implications of the differences for policy makers? This paper takes aim at clarifying what, technically, constitutes a “platform” that is interesting from the perspective of competition and policy.

By Jørgen Veisdal, Ph.D.^[1]

I. INTRODUCTION

Although strongly implicated in the 2013 global surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden,^[2] popular interest in the potentially harmful role of “tech platforms” arguably truly came to prominence following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, whereby data obtained from Facebook’s advertising platform was instrumental in influencing its outcome.^[3] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alphabet’s YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Twitter all came under similar scrutiny for inadequately handling the spread of misinformation, conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination rhetoric,^[4] arguably leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths.^[5]

Over the last ten yea