Private Power, Online Information Flows and EU Law: Mind The Gap(Hart Studies in Competition Law)

This monograph examines how European Union law and regulation address concentrations of private economic power which impede free information flows on the Internet to the detriment of Internet users’ autonomy. In particular, competition law, sector specific regulation (if it exists), data protection and human rights law are considered and assessed to the extent they can tackle such concentrations of power for the benefit of users. Using a series of illustrative case studies, of Internet provision, search, mobile devices and app stores, and the cloud, the work demonstrates the gaps that currently exist in EU law and regulation. It is argued that these gaps exist due, in part, to current overarching trends guiding the regulation of economic power, namely neoliberalism, by which only the situation of market failure can invite ex ante rules, buoyed by the lobbying of regulators and legislators by those in possession of such economic power to achieve outcomes which favour their businesses. Given this systemic, and extra-legal, nature of the reasons as to why the gaps exist, solutions from outside the system are proposed at the end of each case study. This study will appeal to EU competition lawyers and media lawyers.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 2. The Internet, User Autonomy and EU Law 3. Dominance and Internet Provision 4. Dominance and Internet Search 5. Dominance and Mobile Devices 6. Dominance and the Cloud 7. Conclusion

About the Author :
Angela Daly is Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology's Faculty of Law (Australia), Adjunct Research Fellow at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, and Research Associate at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (Netherlands).

Review :
Daly’s very readable book provides an important and well-researched contribution in an area – competition law – that is now inextricably linked to the domains of other legal specialties such as privacy and data protection, the right of expression, and intellectual property. Thus, this book is highly recommended reading for Internet scholars, whatever their specific area of expertise. In this book, legal scholar Angela Daly has not only closely analyzed how European Union regulation is frustrated by crossnational technological and economic power, but has also provided more general food for thought about how regulation does and could work to support public values, including equal access and inclusion, in communication innovation. ... Daly’s observation adds thoughts to an emergent discourse on private power as a distinct phenomenon which needs to be conceptualized and further researched in legal scholarship ... The growing body of literature—including Daly’s work—not only indicates but also drives a regulatory and societal paradigm shift, even if this proceeds in slow motion. This methodical, constructively critical work is punctuated by conclusions that trace out ways in which European citizens and consumers can have more effective protection in the future from the European Union.