Problems with the European Commission’s Platform Survey and Lessons Learned from the Economics of Multi-Sided Platforms and Privacy

Jan 21, 2015

CPI Europe Column edited by Anna Tzanaki (Competition Policy International) & Juan Delgado (Global Economics Group) presents:

Problems with the European Commission’s Platform Survey and Lessons Learned from the Economics of Multi-Sided Platforms and Privacy¹ by James C. Cooper, Douglas H. Ginsburg, Bruce H. Kobayashi, Koren W. Wong-Ervin & Joshua D. Wright (Global Antitrust Institute, George Mason University)²

Intro by Juan Delgado (Global Economics Group)

The hype about online platform competition and about the sharing economy has led several competition authorities across Europe to launching market investigations and studies on the subject. The first obstacle facing such exercises is the broad scope of the online platform concept itself and the complexity and diversity of platform markets. Gathering the right market data and making the right interpretation of it is already a challenge. As suggested by the Global Antitrust Institute at George Mason University School of Law in this month’s column, any intended regulatory intervention in platform markets should be rooted in sound economic analysis.

The European Commission (EC) recently published a public consultation on the Regulatory Environment for Platforms, Online Intermediaries, Data, Cloud Computing, and the Collaborative Economy. According to the EC, the aim of this wide-ranging consultation was to understand the role and impact of online platforms on various fields such as on-line servi