Digital Platforms and Antitrust Law

This Article is about “big data” and antitrust law. Big data, for my purposes, refers to digital platforms that enable the discovery and sharing of information by consumers, and the harvesting and analysis of consumer data by the platform. The obvious example of such a platform is Google. The big platforms owe their market dominance not to anticompetitive conduct but to economies of scale. This Article discusses three types of anticompetitive conduct associated with digital platforms: kill zone expropriation, acquisition of nascent rivals, and denial of access to data. There is nothing so unusual about digital platforms that would require a reform of the antitrust laws. Some are described as two-sided markets, but this designation, even after Ohio v. American Express Co., should not present an obstacle to the application of antitrust law. I. Introduction II. Platforms III. Competition Issues ... A. Kill Zone Expropriation ... B. Acquisition of Nascent Rivals ... C. Denial of Access to Data IV. Antitrust Law V. Conclusion