Big Data and Competition Policy: Market Power, Personalised Pricing and Advertising

Abstract

This paper studies three specific issues around the application of competition policy to big data. The first issue relates to market power assessment and analyses the power given by data control in the big data value chain. The second and third issues relate to abuse of dominance assessment and analyse the use of data to personalise prices and to target advertising. To deal with those three issues, we recommend an analytical and governance framework for competition agencies.

Keywords: big data, competition policy, data and market power, personalised pricing, target adverstising