Margrethe Vestager has made it clear
that the European Commission is looking into potential
competition issues arising from big data. Whether tech giants
and other big data collectors should brace themselves for the next
big showdown with the EU's competition regulator remains to be
seen. However, it is never too early to consider precisely what the
competition issues are surrounding big data.
Existing commentary and national enquiries point to two
principal activities as being subject to antitrust investigation.
These are the algorithmic processing of big data and the collection
of data that may create or enhance dominance and raise barriers to
entry.
The algorithmic processing of data inevitably finds itself at
the epicentre of a competition law discussion. In their
book titled Virtual Competition, Professors
Ezrachi and Stucke foresee the "end of competition as we
know it" as a result of the increasing use of algorithms
on markets. Competition concerns over
