European Antitrust Enforcers Move On Holders Of Big Data

Recent months have seen a surge of new initiatives by European antitrust enforcers applying competition law rules to holders and processors of "big data." Big data often is described as the accumulation of a significant volume of different types of data, produced at high speed from multiple sources, whose handling and analysis might require new and more powerful processors and algorithms.¹ Although public attention has so far mostly focused on search engines and social networks, many other industries, such as online advertising, energy, telecommunications, insurance, banking, or transport process big data and are thus potentially affected.

While issues around the collection and use of data have arisen before the European Commission in the past, notably in some merger control decisions, the focus has shifted to national antitrust enforcers who are starting to test the applicability of competition law tools to the processing (collection, transfer, and holding) of big