ACCC finds new competition laws are needed for digital platforms
December 19, 2023
The continued expansion of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft into emerging technologies and other markets demonstrates the critical need for regulatory reform, the ACCC has found in its latest report published end of November 2023.
The report examines the strategies of the five biggest digital platforms and finds that their expanding reach into our daily lives and livelihoods – via multiple interconnected products and services – is exacerbating risks of harms to competition and consumers.
The report, which is the seventh in the Digital Platform Services Inquiry, uses smart home devices and consumer cloud storage as examples to explore the impacts of the expansion of digital platforms into different products and services.
“We know that online products and services offer many benefits for consumers and businesses. The significant investments made by digital platforms to develop new technologies are having a transformative effect on our society and economy,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
“The continued expansion of digital platforms has also increased the risk of those platforms engaging in harmful behaviour, such as invasive data collection practices and consumer lock-in practices that can reduce choice and stifle innovation,”
“Robust competition is critical for markets to function well. As the digital economy evolves and the ecosystems of digital platforms continue to expand, we must be equipped with the appropriate regulatory tools to ensure effective competition in these markets,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
“This report is further evidence supporting our earlier recommendations that we should update our competition and consumer laws to ensure consumers and businesses continue to benefit from the opportunities created by digital platform services. Our proposed reforms include a call for targeted consumer protections and service-specific codes to prevent anti-competitive conduct by particular designated digital platforms.”
Digital platforms have expanded beyond their original core offerings (for example, in search and social media) to other markets including generative AI, digital health services, information storage, education, and financial products. Their reach now involves products and services in many markets and multiple touch points with consumers and businesses.
“Australians increasingly use digital platforms for work, study and play and can benefit from their wide range of interconnected products and services. While the size and scale of digital platforms alone does not raise concern, there is a risk that this expansion may be driven by a desire from digital platforms to entrench or extend their market power,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
The ACCC has not made specific findings of anti-competitive conduct in this report but considers that when a digital platform service provider has significant market power in one or more markets, certain behaviours have a higher risk of harming competition.
Potential competition harms
According to ACCC, Digital platforms with significant market power can use practices like bundling or tying of products, pre-installation and default settings to limit customer choice or deter innovation from competitors.
Consumer cloud storage is commonly embedded within digital platform operating systems, devices and productivity suites and in some cases is no longer available as a standalone product. Consumers may use a bundled cloud storage service even when there are more innovative or high-quality alternatives available to them.
Coordination decisions, such as among families who use the same services to share files or photos, or lock-in effects arising from the cost and inconvenience of transferring files to a new service, can further deter consumers from switching to a different service.
“Integrated cloud storage services can be convenient for consumers, but they can also discourage consumers from purchasing new products and services outside the ecosystem. This makes it harder for competitors who offer standalone services to compete and potentially stifles the development of innovative products,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
When a digital platform holds a crucial ‘gatekeeper’ position between consumers and businesses, it has the opportunity and incentive to harm competition. For example, certain digital platforms can exercise control through self-preferencing – favouring their own products and services over competitors who rely on the platform to reach consumers.
Some digital platforms have expanded into new gatekeeper roles with voice assistant technology that is incorporated into smart home devices. Voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa may provide an opportunity for Google, Apple and Amazon to encourage users to favour their products and services to the detriment of rivals.
Data collection practices of digital platforms
The ACCC also found that as digital platform service providers expand, they have greater access to rich consumer data, which they can collect and use throughout their ecosystems of products and services.
For example, Amazon, Apple and Google collect vast amounts of consumer data through smart home devices. It’s not always clear from the relevant privacy policies if the data collected exceeds that which is needed for device functionality or product improvement.
As digital platforms create products and services in other sectors, consumers face the risk of losing control over their data.
“Consumers who use multiple products from a single digital platform may be forced to agree to unfavourable terms and conditions and/or accept unpalatable data collection practices due to a lack of suitable alternatives or because it is simply too inconvenient or costly to move out of that ecosystem,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
Emerging technologies
The report also considers the role of digital platform providers in developing emerging technologies. The five largest digital platforms (Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft) are making substantial investments in research and development and buying smaller companies in areas such as generative AI and virtual reality to ensure they’re in strategically important positions in the developing digital economy.
“The critical role digital platform service providers have in the development of new technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing demonstrates their importance to the Australian economy, now and in the future,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
“It is also further evidence that we need to ensure our competition laws are fit-for-purpose to respond to the potential challenges posed by these technological and market developments.”
ACCC recommendations
In the fifth report of the Digital Platforms Services Inquiry, the ACCC made a range of recommendations to address harms to Australian consumers, small businesses, and competition.
The recommendations include new service-specific mandatory codes of conduct for particular ‘designated digital platforms,’ based on principles set out in legislation.
This new regulatory regime would work alongside Australia’s existing competition laws to address anti-competitive conduct, unfair treatment of business users and barriers to entry and expansion by potential rivals.
The ACCC has also proposed new mandatory obligations on all digital platforms to address scams, harmful apps, fake reviews, including notice and action requirements and stronger verification of business users and reviews.
Categories : World Focus
Tags : ACCC Business Competition Law Consumer Digital Platforms Recommendations
