The paper analyses the economics behind algorithmic search and recommender services, based upon personalized user data. Such services play a paramount role for online services such as marketplaces (e.g. Amazon), audio streaming (e.g. Spotify), video streaming (e.g. Netflix, YouTube), app stores,...

The ubiquitous process of digitization changes economic competition on markets in several ways and leads to the emergence of new business models. The increasing roles of digital platforms as well as data-driven markets represent two relevant examples. These developments challenge competition...

In December 2020, new regulation of digital markets was proposed by European Commission. It specifically addresses main concerns raised by business behavior of operators of core services in their gatekeeping positions. However, voice assistants (or digital personal assistants, DPAs, e.g. Apple's...

The European Commission has proposed a new regulatory tool for the governance of digital markets. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) intents to limit the market behavior of so-called gatekeeper companies to ensure contestable and fair digital markets. We review the provisions of the DMA both from a...

The importance of digital platforms and related data-driven business models is ever increasing and poses challenges for the workability of competition in the respective markets (tendencies towards dominant platforms, paying-with-data instead of traditional money, privacy concerns, etc.). Due to...

The paper applies economic theories to give an overview of the emerging phenomenon of digital personal assistants (DPAs). A DPA is an intelligent automated system that interacts with the user through a dialogue in natural language, and meanwhile applying third-party services to obtain...

The European Commission has proposed a new regulatory tool for the governance of digital markets. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) intents to limit the market behavior of socalled gatekeeper companies to ensure contestable and fair digital markets. We review the provisions of the DMA both from a...