European Privacy Law and Global Markets for Data

Peukert, Christian; Bechtold, Stefan; Batikas, Michail; Kretschmer, Tobias

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3560392

European Privacy Law and Global Markets for Data

58 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2020 Last revised: 7 Jul 2020

Tobias Kretschmer

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Faculty of Business Administration (Munich School of Management); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

There are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 29, 2020

Abstract

We demonstrate how privacy law interacts with competition and trade policy in the context of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We follow more than 110,000 websites for 18 months to show that websites reduced their connections to web technology providers after GDPR became effective, especially regarding requests involving personal data. This also holds for websites catering to non-EU audiences and therefore not bound by GDPR. We further document an increase in market concentration in web technology services after the introduction of GDPR. While most firms lose market share, the leading firm, Google, significantly increases market share.

Keywords: Privacy, competition policy, antitrust, Internet regulation, compliance risk, GDPR, Brussels effect, cookies, web tracking

JEL Classification: K21, L12, L15, L86

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Peukert, Christian and Bechtold, Stefan and Batikas, Michail and Kretschmer, Tobias, European Privacy Law and Global Markets for Data (June 29, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3560392 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3560392