Competition Lore Podcast

Traditional media has been transformed by technological change and across the world, governments and regulators are contemplating the impact of the disruption on the production and consumption of news. 

Central to this consideration is the influence of digital platforms, Google and Facebook particularly, which now in large part shape what news content we consume and when and how we consume it. Crucial to the platforms’ role as news gateways is the advertising that funds their business models, transferring revenue substantially away from news organisations in favour of the search and social media giants.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been conducting an inquiry into the impact of digital platforms on media and advertising markets and has recently released its preliminary report.

In this episode Dr Katharine Kemp from the University of New South Wales steers us through the detailed maze of factual and legal analysis and draws attention to the key findings and principal recommendations as they relate to advertisers and news organisations.

The inquiry website, with links to the Issues Paper, submissions and the preliminary report, can be found here. You can also read Katharine’s initial reaction to the report in a think piece published on The Conversation here.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why is the United States falling behind global competition standards? What drives Margrethe Vestager in leading the European Commission’s aggressive stance on big tech? Why did the Federal Trade Commission walk away from its Google investigation? And why should agencies focus on solutions to market problems, not just big cases and massive fines?

These are just some of the topics canvassed in this episode on competition institutions in a digital age, with Professor William Kovacic of George Washington University and King’s College London.

Bill has an encyclopedic knowledge of competition systems and agencies around the world and a deep understanding of what shapes and determines their effectiveness. He has published extensively on this subject and is in constant demand for his sage counsel on how to evaluate and improve agency performance.

You can find many of his publications on his SSRN page here.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the year draws to a close, this episode takes us on a short stroll down memory lane, re-capping key debates and recurring themes and reliving some of the highlights and the lighter moments from the Competition Lore discussion over its first six months.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism”.  That is the fundamental and irrefutable premise of a new book by Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition, named one of the best economics books of 2018 by The Financial Times.

Tepper and Hearn launch a stinging attack on high concentration and insipid competition in the US economy today, documenting and explaining its symptoms and side effects at length. This is a polemic that takes no prisoners. Dysfunctionality and capture of the political, regulatory and academic establishments are recurring themes and, not surprisingly, Big Tech is singled out for special treatment.

The book mounts an extensively researched and engagingly written case for an overhaul of antitrust enforcement to fix the problem.  It's a call to arms, exhorting legislators and courts to ensure that antitrust laws play their part in administering the dose of reinvigorated competition that Tepper and Hearn argue is sorely needed.

Faltering productivity, stymied innovation, stagnant wages growth and rising inequality are not just concerns for the US, however.  They are the preoccupations of economic policymakers and enforcement agencies in many countries around the world, making the book a valuable resource with international relevance.

In this episode, Jonathan shares the key insights from the book and defends its thesis against the arguments that most commonly feature on the opposing side of the debate.

For more details and to order the book, you can visit The Myth of Capitalism website. For more about Jonathan Tepper, he has his own personal website, and you can follow him on Twitter @jtepper2.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The German legislature and competition agency are on the front foot in shoring up antitrust laws and taking action to deal with the challenges raised by a digital economy.

Merger notification rules have been amended to ensure that acquisitions of small but significant competitors by the tech giants do not fall through the net.

The Bundeskartellamt is engaged in a controversial investigation of Facebook’s data collection practices.

And a raft of new regulation for platforms is on the drawing board, as well as potentially far-reaching changes to abuse of dominance laws to deal with intermediation power and market tipping.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Professor Rupprecht Podszun of the Heinrich Heine Universitat Dusseldorf explains these developments, what’s behind them and why they are likely to be influential across Europe. Industrial policy, politics and the philosophical underpinnings of German competition law all feature in the fascinating discussion.

You can access the new statutory provisions in the German competition legislation introduced in 2017 here. The Bundeskartellamt’s preliminary assessment in its Facebook proceeding is available on its website. And the report on Modernising the Law on Abuse of Market Power is also available online.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When grappling with competition issues in the digital economy, Google is often the first name to come up. 

The tech powerhouse has been in the firing line of competition authorities in Europe. Its business model and strategies have sparked intense debate about what big data and big analytics mean for competition and how or even whether antitrust enforcers should respond.

And, yet, for users who share their most intimate details with the search engine, Google has been equated with a "modern-day God".

In this episode of Competition Lore, I am delighted to share the opportunity that I had to discuss these and related issues with Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian.

Hal was not only generous with his time but with his views ranging from general topics such as the role of economics and populism in antitrust to specific issues raised by the European Commission’s decisions against in the Shopping and Android cases.

Aside from setting up the interview, Google had no other input to the production of this episode.

Hal hinted in the episode at a second edition of his co-authored best-selling book; let’s hope we can hold him to that!  But if you want to read the first edition, it is Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy.  

The episode features an interjection from Professor Scott Galloway with his thesis that Google is a “modern day God”. You may find his book, The Four, of interest or you could listen to his TED Talk.

Or, if you’re one of those who likes to contemplate whether there is “life after Google”, then you should read the book by George Gilder, Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and Rise of the Blockchain Economy, also referred to in the episode. Or you could just watch this on Youtube.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Academics are making an important contribution to current debates regarding the policies and laws that govern competition in the digital era.  Independence and objectivity in academic research are crucial to the value and impact of that contribution.

In this second episode in our mini-series on Academics and Big Tech, you’ll hear from Professor Ioannis Lianos of University College London on why he considers there to be serious risks to the integrity of academic research as a result of undisclosed funding by large tech companies. 

The episode is a sequel to episode 13 in which Professor Daniel Sokol gave us a quite different perspective on these issues. However, this episode goes further, to explore why and how the playing field for research funding could and should be made more level and the importance of fairness in funding to allow for research that pushes the boundaries and tests the status quo.

You will find the Academic Society for Competition Law’s Declaration of Ethics referred to in the episode here and you can read about Ioannis’s efforts to promote greater disclosure of corporate funding for academic research here.

If you would like to read Ioannis’s latest thinking on how mainstream doctrines in competition law should be challenged, I highly recommend this paper:

The Poverty of Competition Law, 2018.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Technological transformations are raising a host of legal and economic issues that are keeping competition law academics very busy!

But are there risks to academic independence in the era of big tech? And are they any different to the experience with big oil, big tobacco, big pharma?

Recently there has been publicity surrounding the extent to which large tech companies are funding academic research that supports their policy and legal objectives.  Some are concerned that this threatens the integrity and value of the academic enterprise, particularly when there is non-disclosure of funding or potential conflicts of interest. Others are more accommodating, conscious of the impact of cut backs in government funding for research and keen to see greater engagement between universities and private enterprise.

In this episode of Competition Lore, we hear from one of the antitrust scholars in the thick of the debate.  Professor Daniel Sokol is from the University of Florida Levin College of Law and is also an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a client of which is Google. Danny shares his thoughts on being implicated personally in the campaign against so-called “Google Academics” and we talk about what it means to be a modern day scholar with a range of roles inside and outside of academia.

Here is a sample of Danny’s recent work in relation to antitrust issues and big tech:

The Cambridge Handbook of Antitrust, Intellectual Property, and High Tech, 2017

Understanding Online Markets and Antitrust Analysis, 2017 (with Jingyuan Mua)

Responding to Antitrust and Information Technology, 2017

Does Antitrust Have a Role to Play in Regulating Big Data?, 2016 (with Roisin Comerford)

The Broader Implications of Merger Remedies in High Technology Markets, 2014

The Google Transparency Project report referred in the episode can be found here.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“I think it’s hard to have a mission of wanting to bring the whole world closer together and leave out the biggest country..”. That was Mark Zuckerberg’s response when asked recently about Facebook’s record of attempted entry into China.

By and large GAFA have struggled to compete in the largest economy in the world.  Meanwhile BAT (the homegrown tech trio, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) represent the new Chinese dragons, dominating in search, e-commerce, messaging, AI and other digital market spaces.

In this episode of Competition Lore Dr Wendy Ng, a specialist in the political economy of Chinese competition law at the University of Melbourne, shares her insights on the context that shapes the way in which the Anti-Monopoly Law works in China.

We canvas how the political and socio-cultural dynamics influence the law’s enforcement and the approach taken to abuse of dominance in particular. She explains the co-dependent relationship between the powerful domestic tech companies and the government and what challenges face their US counterparts.  Issues of digital protectionism come up!

For anyone practising in this field in China or wanting to understand the context in which Chinese competition law operates, I highly recommend Wendy’s book:

The Political Economy of Competition Law in China, 2018.

And here is a sample of some of her other recent papers on related topics:

The Influence of Socialist Principles on the Legal Regulation of Markets in China: The Anti-Monopoly Law, 2018

The Independence of Chinese Competition Agencies and the Impact on Competition Enforcement in China, 2015

Policy Objectives of Public Enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law: An Assessment of the First Five Years, 2015

You can follow Wendy on Twitter at @wendyengee.  

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On 18 July this year Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s competition czar, announced a record €4.3 billion fine against Google in relation to various practices concerning Android, the search giant’s popular mobile operating system.

It comes just over a year after the European Commission’s €2.4 billion fine in the so-called Google Shopping case, discussed with Professor Pinar Akman on episode 7 of Competition Lore.

The Android case relates to complex contractual agreements that Google requires phonemakers to sign if they want to access the company’s popular digital services, in particular the ‘must have’ Google Play Store.

The decision sparked a barrage of commentary, for and against, not least in the latter camp from the Google CEO who argues that the Android story is one of “more competition not less” in the mobile eco-system and to the benefit of now more than 2 billion Android phone users.

In this episode of Competition Lore you’ll hear from Professor Nicolas Petit and Professor Simonetta Vezzoso, two of the many commentators who are dissecting the decision and who have very different views on whether the European Commission got it right. You'll also hear from Margrethe Vestager, the European Competition Commissioner, and from Sundar Pichai, the Google CEO!

Full reasons for the decision are yet to be released. In the meantime, you can read the press release here and watch the announcement by Margrethe Vestager at the press conference here.

You can follow developments in Nicolas’s and Simonetta’s thinking about the case and other aspects of competition and big tech on Twitter or their blogs and you might also be interested in some of their longer form writing:

Nicolas

@CompetitionProf

https://symphonyofdisruption.org/

EU engaged in antitrust gerrymandering against Google, 2018

'Big is bad' narrative is simply untrue in high-tech sector, 2018 (with Richard Sousa)

The Misguided Assault on the Consumer Welfare Standard in the Age of Platform Markets, 2018

Technology Giants, the Moligopoly Hypothezis and Holistic Competition: A Primer, 2016

Simonetta

@wavesblog

https://competitionwave.blogspot.com/

Android and Forking Restrictions: On the Hidden Closedness of “Open”, 2018

Fintech, Access to Data, and the Role of Competition Policy, 2018

Competition by design, 2017

Online Platforms, Rate Parity, and the Free Riding Defence, 2016

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the fathers of economics, Adam Smith, famously said:

“people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

He was referring of course to the irresistible temptation by competitors to collude. 

Business collusion to subvert competition may be as old as the hills but it is facing new challenges.

In today’s world, the combination of Big Data, speed-of-light digital connectivity and giga-normous computational capacity, allows for competitors to collude through algorithms in ways unimaginable in the pre-internet age.

It’s a challenge that Professor Michal Gal of the University of Haifa is paying close attention to. 

In this episode of Competition Lore Michal explains how algorithms make coordination between rivals much easier and more efficient.  She shares her creative thinking on how consumers themselves can use algorithms to counteract the anti-competitive effects.  And she helps us to understand the extent to which the current law captures algorithmic collusion as well as the ways in which it needs to adapt to keep up with technological developments.

If you would like to learn more from Michal on the topics discussed in the episode, I highly recommend her papers:

Algorithmic Consumers, 2017 (with Niva Elkin-Koren), published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology

Algorithms as Illegal Agreements, 2018, to be published in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal

And here you can find out about the Topkins case that Michal referred to, a case brought by the US Department of Justice in 2015 which involved the use of dynamic pricing algorithms in the sale of online posters.

Michal also referred to research by John Connor (regarding cartel overcharges) and Oren Bar-Gill (regarding price discrimination).  If you are interested in reading some of this work, here are the references:

John Connor, Cartels Costly for Consumers, 2017

Oren Bar-Gill, Big Data, Privacy and Price Discrimination: A Behavioural Economics Perspective, 2015

Still hungry for more? Here are some of Michal’s other recent papers on related topics:

The Hidden Costs of Free Goods: Implications for Antitrust Enforcement, 2016 (with Daniel Rubinfeld)

Algorithmic Challenges to Autonomous Choice, 2017

The Social Contract at the Basis of Competition Law, 2017

The Power of the Crowd in the Sharing Economy, 2018

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s behind the statement that all of us make sometimes: “that’s none of your business!”?  Have you ever thought about when and why you regard your information or behaviour as private?

These are questions that we all need to grapple with in a platform economy, the basis for which is the collection and use of vast amounts of personal data.

Some regard privacy as a human right, integral to our personhood.  Others regard it as an asset, tradeable for commercial value. There is also a view that privacy is essential to the workings of a liberal democratic society.

In this episode of Competition Lore we are joined by Professor Colin Bennett, a political scientist who specialises in privacy, from the University of Victoria in Canada.

In a wide ranging rich discussion, Colin explains how the meaning of privacy is highly context-specific, what kinds of value we ascribe to it and how it sometimes bumps up against other competing public interests including free speech and a free market.

We talk about the international trade implications of data protection and about the governance of privacy at an international level, including how big tech companies are weighing into the policy and public discourse, what he thinks about the claim that Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation is a form of digital protectionism… and much much more.

This episode is longer than previous episodes but is jam-packed with information and insights you will not want to miss... 

If you’re keen to learn more about privacy, here’s a sample of Colin’s recent work:

The European General Data Protection Regulation: An instrument for the globalization of privacy standards?, 2018

In Defense of Privacy: The Concept and the Regime, 2011

International Privacy Standards: A Continuing Convergence?, 2010

The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective, 2016 (2^nd ed) (with Charles Raab)

The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance, 2008

What Government Should Know about Privacy: A Foundation Paper, 2001

Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age, 1999 (Rebecca Grant)

Or you can visit his personal website at http://www.colinbennett.ca/.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Big Data and Big Analytics have policymakers in a frenzy. In some parts of the world this is leading to regulation that provides greater protection for privacy. But what does privacy have to do with competition?

There are heated debates about whether stricter privacy regulation will shut down competition and innovation or whether it will drive competitive forces in a data-driven economy.

Much of the debate has been focused on Europe’s latest Big Tech missile, the General Data Protection Regulation. But in the US also, some policymakers are considering following suit.

This episode of Competition Lore features Peter Harris, Chairman of the Australian Productivity Commission, one of Australia’s leading public policy thinkers and the architect behind an innovative policy reform, a proposed comprehensive consumer right to data.

It’s a reform slated to power up competition by empowering consumers while at the same time bolstering privacy. More broadly it is a reform aimed at creating a social licence for data collection and use, for the benefit of us all.

If you would like more information about the Consumer Data Right, you can read the Productivity Commission’s 2017 data report here and the Australian Government’s response, and other related material, here.

You might also be interested in this:

Platform power and privacy protection: The case for policy innovation, 2018

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As debates about big tech heat up, one of the talking points has been the decision of the European Commission to impose a record €2.42 billion fine on Google for abusing its dominance as a search engine by giving illegal advantage to its own comparison shopping service.

The decision took 7 years to make and is now on appeal.  But Google is not alone in disagreeing with it.

Some experts argue that the way in which Google’s search engine dealt with rival comparison shopping sites doesn’t fit neatly into any category of abuse recognised under European competition law.  More fundamentally, critics say that the Commission focussed too much on harm (unfairness even) to competitors and not enough on possible harm to consumers.

Adding to the controversy is that the US Federal Trade Commission has investigated the same conduct and found Google did not have a case to answer.

Professor Pinar Akman, Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice at the University of Leeds, is an expert on Europe’s abuse of dominance law and has studied the case closely. Some of her research has been funded by Google but the views she expresses are her own.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Pinar explains why the Commission’s decision should be seen, at best, as novel. She reflects on why the US FTC reached a different view on the same conduct and points out the problems with the remedy of equal treatment with which Google has had to comply.

If you would like to read the European Commission’s decision in the Google shopping case, here are links to:

The decision in full (beware it is 215 pages long!)

The summary of the decision

The Commission’s press release about the decision

And if you would like to read what Pinar has written on the case, here are links to:

A detailed analysis

An abbreviated version...

You may also enjoy watching or listening to a live debate held by Intelligence Squared and the BBC in London on the motion: “Break Up the Tech Giants”, in which Pinar was a speaker against the motion: https://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/break-up-the-tech-giants/.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The argument over Big Data is split. Some argue Big Data makes a small number of platform companies extremely powerful.  These companies have so much data and such resources that they can damage competition, erode our privacy and maybe even distort our democracy.

But not everyone shares this view. Others say the data giants are so gigantic because they serve us so well.  We value what they offer and most of us don’t mind paying for it with our privacy. The ‘big is bad’ theory is not only wrong, it’s dangerous.

Geoffrey Manne is one of the loudest critics.  He argues that Big Tech opponents have failed to identify clear harms to consumer welfare and calls for an evidence-based approach using an error-cost framework.  He also questions the wisdom of trying to shoehorn broader social and political concerns into the narrow economic remit of antitrust law.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Geoff explains why we need to be wary of claims about privacy intrusion as anti-competitive, why network effects should be seen as good not bad, and why the argument that large data-sets prevent new entry is overblown.  He doesn’t buy the idea that big business effectively lobbies government to stifle regulation and he muses that the European crackdown on powerful platform companies may be anti-US protectionism at work. For him, the so far restrained approach of the US authorities is the right one.  The risks of getting it wrong, he argues, are just too great.

Here’s a sample of Geoff’s recent writing on these topics:

Big Tech’s Big-Time, Big-Scale Problem, 2018 (with Gus Hurwitz)

Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google, 2017 (with Joshua Wright)

Innovation and the Limits of Antitrust, 2012 (with Joshua Wright)

The Problem of Search Engines as Essential Facilities: An Economic & Legal Assessment, 2011 (with Joshua Wright)

The Law and Economics of Data and Privacy in Antitrust Analysis, 2014 (with Ben Sperry)

The Problems and Perils of Bootstrapping Privacy and Data into an Antitrust Framework, 2015 (with Ben Sperry)

A Critical Assessment of the Latest Charge of Google's Anticompetitive Bias from Yelp and Tim Wu, 2016 (with Ben Sperry and Kristian Stout)

Truth on the Market blogs, https://truthonthemarket.com/author/geoffmanne/

And here’s that quirky song from Tower of Power – ‘What is hip’

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever thought of your data as currency? When was the last time you read the privacy policy when you signed up to an online service? Who has the time? And what are you going to do if you don’t agree? 

Professor Maurice Stucke argues that what we all thought was free, is still actually costing us – it’s just not taking our money. Coining that now pervasive aphorism, in the digital world the currency is data and we may well be handing it over without knowing its true value. This is just one of a series of economic, political and social risks associated with the rise of large data-driven business models highlighted by Professor Stucke. 

In this episode of Competition Lore, Maurice Stucke explains how our data is powering digital platforms and outlines a regulatory and enforcement agenda for governments and competition authorities to keep a check on their power.

Here is just a sample of Maurice Stucke's  recent work:

No Mistake About It: The Important Role of Antitrust in the Era of Big Data, 2015 (with Allen Grunes)

Debunking the Myths Over Big Data and Antitrust, 2015 (with Allen Grunes)

Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy, Harvard University Press, 2016 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

When Competition Fails to Optimize Quality: A Look at Search Engines, 2016 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

Big Data and Competition Policy, Oxford University Press, 2016 (with Allen Grunes)

How Digital Assistants Can Harm our Economy, Privacy, and Democracy, 2017 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

Should we be concerned about data-opolies?, 2018

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The digital revolution affecting economies and societies cuts across multiple areas of government policy and is engendering an active dialogue between policymakers. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is playing a key role in advancing this dialogue and no more so than in the area of competition policy.

Should governments be regulating powerful data-driven companies? What tools and skills do competition authorities need to protect competition in a digital economy? How should different government authorities work together in this mission? 

These are the questions that the Head of the Competition Division of the OECD, Antonio Gomes and his colleagues, are asking and they’re bringing stakeholders from government, academia and business together to find the answers.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Antonio shares the latest thinking of the Competition Division on the challenges and opportunities for competition authorities grappling with the digital transformation of markets.

In a wide ranging discussion, we touch on vertical restraints in e-commerce, market definition and power in multi-sided markets, and the importance and timing of intervention to promote innovation, amongst other things.

Here are links to the OECD’s resources on the digital economy, innovation and competition.

And you can see Antonio and his colleagues discussing the work of the Competition Division on Youtube.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The way we consume news and media has changed dramatically over the past decade. Print newspapers are almost a thing of nostalgia and few of us wait to sit down in front of a television just to see what’s happening. Digital platforms are replacing media empires.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission is conducting an inquiry into the effect that digital search engines, social media and content aggregators have on media and advertising. Rod Sims is the Chairman of the ACCC – a role in which he’s accustomed to industry upheaval and public controversy.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Rod Sims outlines what's involved in scrutinising the platform goliaths, while admiring their business models and balancing the expectations of stakeholders.

Here’s all the links for the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry, including the Terms of Reference, Issues Paper and Submissions.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many of us use the term "platform" on a daily basis to describe businesses that we connect with online. But when and how does a business act as a platform? And what difference does this make to platform users, whether as consumers or other businesses that sell or advertise products and services on it?

Professor Dick Schmalensee has been studying platforms since at least the 1980s. He says the simplest definition of a platform is a business that brings different sides together. It's an old model but one supercharged by the tech-revolution, and it's getting attention from many authorities around the world. The first challenge though is to understand just what they are dealing with.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Professor Schmalensee defines the platform business model and explains how their network effects work, making them attractive to users but also potentially challenging for competition law enforcement.

Here is just a sample of Dick Schmalensee’s recent work relevant to this episode:

Matchmakers: The New Economics of Multisided Platforms, Harvard Business Review Press, 2016 (with David Evans)

Network Effects: March to the Evidence, not to the Slogans, 2017 (with David Evans).

The Antitrust Analysis of Multisided Businesses, 2015 (with David Evans)

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There has been vigorous debate about the concentration of market power in super-platforms like Google and Facebook. Do we have the policy tools to preserve competition? What are the implications of increasingly powerful data-opolies? The new economy has led some scholars to question the economic theories that have underpinned competition policy since the '80s, and in some parts of the world, politicians and policymakers are taking notice.

One of the clearest voices challenging the orthodoxy is Professor Maurice Stucke. He has highlighted a series of economic, political and social harms associated with the rise of large data-driven business models. His co-authored books on Big Data and Competition Policy and Virtual Competition have attracted enormous attention internationally.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Professor Stucke explains what data-opolies are, and why he says we should worry about them.

Here is just a sample of Maurice Stucke's recent work:

No Mistake About It: The Important Role of Antitrust in the Era of Big Data, 2015 (with Allen Grunes)

Debunking the Myths Over Big Data and Antitrust, 2015 (with Allen Grunes)

Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy, Harvard University Press, 2016 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

When Competition Fails to Optimize Quality: A Look at Search Engines, 2016 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

Big Data and Competition Policy, Oxford University Press, 2016 (with Allen Grunes)

How Digital Assistants Can Harm our Economy, Privacy, and Democracy, 2017 (with Ariel Ezrachi)

Should we be concerned about data-opolies?, 2018

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.