The Importance of Competition Policy for European “Digital (End) Consumers” in a Digitalized Society
Abstract
The major elements of the paper consist of finding answers on following questions: Why is competition policy important for the European consumers regardless of whether it is the digital world or not? What are the threats to competition in the digital economy and how are digital (end) consumers affected? What are the European Commission and national competition authorities doing to defend competition and consumers in the digital world? Following the first part, examples of recent cases are given, including ongoing investigations in the Apple cases, Facebook, Amazon, and several Google cases. The final part of the paper is dedicated to the regulatory role, namely of future Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), for competition enforcement.