The EU’s Digital Markets Act becomes law on Tuesday and will regulate the conduct of “gatekeepers” – digital platforms with entrenched market power. Its objective is to make these markets fairer and more contestable.
And while the legislation will not have an immediate effect on the UK, British ministers are considering their own pro-competition regime, which is likely to follow the EU enforcement actions closely.
In 2019, three separate international reports showed that key digital markets are dominated by one or two of the same five companies: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. This market concentration results from an unusual combination of traits: strong network effects, the relevance of data, scale and scope economies, and the ease of exploiting consumer biases online.
Together, they create
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