Roundtable Competition and Consumer Policy in Digital Markets
Aura García Pabón & Carolina Alessi Competition Experts
OECD Competition Division
Why now? The renewed relevance of competition and consumer policy
A shared objective under pressure
• The relationship between competition and consumer policy has long been grounded in a shared objective: promoting consumer welfare through well-functioning markets
• Digitalisation has amplified the potential benefits of innovation, efficiency and choice, while increasing consumer risks and the entrenchment of market power
• The boundaries between competition and consumer policy concerns have become increasingly porous
Three reasons why the interaction is particularly salient today
1 Digital platforms shape consumer choice
They shape access to information and frame consumer choice through increasingly sophisticated datadriven and algorithmic mechanisms that were marginal or far less developed ten years ago
2 Conduct with dual effects
Practices such as personalised pricing, self-preferencing, misleading online choice architecture and data-based lock-in may influence consumer behaviour while simultaneously reinforcing market power and raising barriers to entry
3 Limits of traditional ex-post tools
Regulators have increasingly recognised that traditional expost competition law tools may be slow to address fast-moving and systemic conduct, prompting frameworks that treat contestability and consumer choice as interdependent
Distinctive features of digital markets
Digital markets have distinctive features which create both opportunities and challenges
Extensive data collection and processing
New business models deliver significant consumer benefits but also create complex, information-rich environments in which consumers' decisions are increasingly shaped by interface design, personalised content and targeted advertising
Artificial intelligence
AI is increasingly embedded in core market functions such as pricing, ranking and recommendation systems.AI-driven tools transform consumer behaviour through real-time responsiveness and personalised marketing, while also raising concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic bias and transparency
Algorithmic decision-making
Economies of scale and scope and the growing role of intermediation have led to business models that influence both competitive dynamics and consumer outcomes. The growing sophistication of online choice architecture is a key channel through which these effects operate
Agentic AI systems
The emergence of agentic AI systems capable of acting on behalf of humans introduces new forms of intermediation, which may both enhance consumer agency and shift decisionmaking away from users, raising issues of transparency and bias
The dual impact of practices in digital markets
Practices that affect how choices are presented to consumers may have a dual impact
Positive dimension
• The design of online interfaces can enhance consumer experience and generate efficiencies
• New business models deliver lower search costs, personalised services and more efficient transactions
• Digital platforms offer new opportunities for innovative goods and services, greater choice and enhanced convenience
• AI-driven tools enable more tailored interactions through real-time responsiveness and personalised marketing
Negative dimension
• Interface design may steer behaviour in non-transparent ways, limit effective choice or exploit behavioural biases, thereby constraining consumer agency
• Firms can exploit behavioural biases with unprecedented precision, adjusting market features dynamically and experimenting on users in real time
• In digital markets these practices may have a far broader potential to impact consumers than in offline markets
• Digitalisation has introduced qualitatively new dimensions: personalisation at the individual level and exploitation of cognitive biases at a scale previously unattainable
Bridging the two policy areas: towards an integrated perspective
When neither framework alone is sufficient
• In some circumstances, neither framework alone is sufficient to capture the full implications of digital market conduct
• A more integrated perspective supported by structured inter-institutional co-operation can help authorities address both the structural and behavioural dimensions of digital markets more effectively
• While aspects of consumer agency are already implicitly reflected in existing assessments, especially through the analysis of consumer behaviour, they remain unsystematised and not explicitly framed as a distinct analytical parameter
What the paper proposes
Integrate consumer agency into enforcement
The paper proposes ways to integrate consumer agency more systematically into enforcement frameworks, recognising autonomy as a condition that can influence how markets function and how existing legal standards are applied
Combine structural and conduct tools
Combining competition law's structural tools with consumer protection's conduct insights can prevent remedies that appear structurally sound but prove ineffective in practice
The emergence of Agentic AI and the need for co-ordinated responses
Consumer agency considerations may be extended to remedy design. The emergence of agenticAI further underscores the need for coordinated policy responses, raising questions about transparency and bias