Growth Of Digital Economy – A Challenge For Competition Regulators

Introduction

Competition policy is a public policy which is aimed at ensuring that competition in the marketplace is not restricted in any manner that is detrimental to the society. The most significant goal of competition policy is to shield society from harmful competitive behaviour¹.

Digital economy is dynamic and fundamentally different from other sectors. Digital services have a unique feature of network effects, which means that a product or service gains additional value as more people use it. This, on one hand promotes concentration of markets, but at the same time there are multiple routes through which digital services can be delivered to the end users for example, the daily news can be watched via TV, websites, apps and social media and on devices such as phone, tablet or PC. This implies that entrants can challenge market power more easily and fast.