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UK digital markets regime under attack, but still on course
Continue reading: UK digital markets regime under attack, but still on courseThe Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is now in the Report Stage in Parliament before it heads to the second chamber, the House of Lords. Trawling through the 87 pages of proposed amendments this week, I was tempted to reach for a hackneyed Winston Churchill quote: “Many forms of Government have been tried, and…
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Will DMA proceedings make competition law obsolete? No they won’t
Continue reading: Will DMA proceedings make competition law obsolete? No they won’tOn 6 September 2023, the European Commission adopted the first “designation” decisions under the Digital Markets Act (or “DMA”). Those decisions designate as “gatekeepers” certain tech companies which offer core platform services that meet specific quantitative criteria (e.g., they reach 45 million end users). We are now gearing up for effective compliance, which will play…
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YouTube should be designated under the UK’s forthcoming DMCC regime
Continue reading: YouTube should be designated under the UK’s forthcoming DMCC regimeYouTube has over 47 million UK monthly users, equating to 92% of the British online population. It is the country’s most visited website (sometimes second to Google.com), one of the most downloaded apps from Apple’s App Store, comes pre-installed on Android devices, and boasts over 700 million hours of its content watched daily on connected…
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The FTC’s landmark case against Amazon tackles the central issue of e-commerce market power
Continue reading: The FTC’s landmark case against Amazon tackles the central issue of e-commerce market powerSince Lina Khan – famously an Amazon critic – was appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a significant lawsuit against Amazon has been expected. The lawsuit was finally launched on Tuesday, brought jointly by the FTC and 17 state attorneys general. The FTC says that Amazon has raised its fees and commissions, cluttered…
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Platform divergence and geographic divergence after Microsoft/Activision and Apple v CMA
Continue reading: Platform divergence and geographic divergence after Microsoft/Activision and Apple v CMAIn January 2022, we first reported on the CMA’s concerns that Apple had been blocking cloud gaming apps on the App Store (Google does allow those apps on Play Store but does not allow in-app purchases to be completed within cloud gaming apps). The CMA referred this issue to a full market investigation on 22…
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European Commission adopts first DMA designation decisions
Continue reading: European Commission adopts first DMA designation decisionsToday marks a milestone in EU platform regulation. The European Commission adopted the first “designation” decisions under the Digital Markets Act (or DMA). Those decisions designate as “gatekeepers” certain tech companies which offer core platform services that meet specific quantitative criteria (e.g., they reach 45 million end users). The tech companies that have been designated as gatekeepers…
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The proposed Platform Work Directive and employment status misclassification: Distinguishing between employers and digital labour intermediaries
Continue reading: The proposed Platform Work Directive and employment status misclassification: Distinguishing between employers and digital labour intermediariesOn 9 December 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published a proposal for a Directive on improving conditions in platform work (“Platform Work Directive” or “PWD”). This initiative adds to the EU’s portfolio in the area of platform regulation but contrary to other instruments that deal with platform-to-business and platform-to-consumer relations (e.g., the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act),…
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Amazon/iRobot: Does Amazon have an incentive to preference its own products?
Continue reading: Amazon/iRobot: Does Amazon have an incentive to preference its own products?We have previously posted about Amazon’s acquisition of the robot vacuum cleaner (“RVC”) brand, iRobot, for $1.7 billion. The case has now been cleared by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) at Phase 1, and referred to Phase 2 for an in-depth investigation by the European Commission. We therefore have another case of diverging…
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Article 6(12) of the Digital Markets Act: Implementing the FRAND requirement
Continue reading: Article 6(12) of the Digital Markets Act: Implementing the FRAND requirementOne of the most intriguing provisions of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) is Article 6(12), which provides that the designated gatekeeper shall apply “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory general conditions of access for business users to its software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services …” Thus, Article 6(12) only applies to three…
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Generative AI and the media sector: Preliminary thoughts on a legal and policy agenda
Continue reading: Generative AI and the media sector: Preliminary thoughts on a legal and policy agendaGenerative AI (or “GenAI”) is undoubtedly becoming the buzz term of the year. However, amid the excitement about new tools that have emerged, the Italian data protection authority announced in March that it was temporarily blocking ChatGPT. In May, the US Senate held a hearing on the oversight of AI where the need for regulation…