In: Economics
2. Is competition in privacy sufficient to protect users? Facebook and online Privacy. business and its environment
There is a move towards corporate concentration in the digital economy. This is especially true of digital outlets, such as social media sites, search engines, digital entertainment or online retailers. Traditionally, the manner in which market supremacy is calculated does not always reflect the level of market control of these businesses, since their goods and services are mostly 'free' to customers.
This phenomenon is driven by the growing dependency of many sectors of the economy on data , in particular personal data. Throughout the digital world , the importance of personal data is that as more and more data are collected and this allows businesses to follow business strategies aimed at gathering as much data as possible. With the advancement and adoption of artificial intelligence technology, the data of users is likely to become much more important for businesses, as their data is a crucial input into the training of AI models.
The consequences of this accumulation of power are important and are not limited to online and offline privacy. Companies like Google serve as gatekeepers, for example by controlling how we access information on the web and which applications we can install on our computers. They can track and monitor us through devices that anticipate and influence our behaviour. This is no longer 'just' concerning the world of digital ads. Increasingly, corporate interests interfere with the workings of government and have significant social impacts.When evaluating market influence, antitrust regulators preferred to concentrate on costs and outputs. This narrow approach takes little or no account of other considerations, such as consumer protection, efficiency , innovation and privacy, and of the interaction between the various specific markets at stake.
Efficient competition means that businesses have an opportunity to invest, to innovate, to keep up with their competitors and to create new and improved goods for customers.
In order to start questioning the use of data for control, we
need to: Assess the forces of businesses with regard to personal
data, concentrating not only on costs, but also on quality of
service, creativity and privacy.
Strengthen control over mergers and acquisitions undertaken by
large corporations, including by analyzing data impacts.