Online Platforms, Algorithms, and the Distortion of Digital Competition
Location:
G.13
Lister Learning and Teaching Centre
EH8 9SU
Date/time
Thu 16 November 2023
11:30 - 13:00
The digital economy offers us a path to future prosperity, delivering waves of innovation and efficiencies. It has transformed the way we communicate, engage, and consume, and heralds an era of perceived opulence, where more is the norm and where our needs are anticipated and catered for. Alongside these benefits, new dynamics of competition have emerged, powered by big data, big analytics and extreme network effects. These dynamics led to increased concentration, the rise of digital ecosystems, and new abusive strategies that harm consumer welfare. The lecture will explore the rise of digital platforms and the distorting effects generated by digital market power and prevailing business models. These trends, coupled with the use of algorithms and AI to exploit and exclude, raise challenging questions as to the scope and effectiveness of competition law enforcement, the adequate level of intervention, and the role of regulatory frameworks.
About the Speaker
Ariel Ezrachi
Ariel Ezrachi is the Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law at the University of Oxford and the Director of the University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (OUP) and the author and co-author of numerous books, including How Big-Tech Barons Smash Innovation (HarperCollins 2022), Competition Overdose (Harper Collins 2020), Virtual Competition (Harvard, 2016) and EU Competition Law - An Analytical Guide to the Leading Cases (Hart, 7th ed, 2021).