Abstract
Platform law has become the cause celebre of technology regulation: a call to regulate the intermediaries who provide platforms for networked digital services. These include the GAFAM giants: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. It resulted in new laws in France and Germany in 2017-18, and an entire platform law agenda “Path to the Digital Decade” in the European Commission, which is rapidly moving from rhetoric to reality in legislative proposals. Many policy entrepreneurs peddle solutions as the policy cycle turns, in a classic case of “solutions chasing a problem.” Hard law, in the shape of the proposed European Digital Services Act (DSA) to be agreed in April 2022, will continue in the coming decade to be accompanied by Codes of Conduct (CoCs) and other self- or co-regulatory measures.
In 2020-22, the world was plunged into a deep economic and social depression due to the COVID19 pandemic and recovery inflation, with broadband connectivity and Internet platforms ever more vital to enforced home workers. Even as legislatures introduce hard law to combat their particular favourite online harm, continued emphasis will focus on giant GAFAM platforms’ self-regulatory practices. In 2022, reforms to digital platform law were debated in parliaments including the European Parliament, United States Congress and British Parliamen. I argue that the approach taken to combatting problematic practices on digital platforms (so-called “Online Harms”) will be through co-regulation of CoCs, though with some direct enforcement notably of ‘app stores’ via competition law.
The article is structured as follows. In the Introduction, I explain the legislative reforms proposed and outline their scope. In the following Section, I explain the competition law actions already implemented and currently ongoing against platforms, notably app stores. In the third section, I explain how CoCs are used, taking as a case study disinformation regulation. In the final section, I conclude by explaining that it is CoCs utilised in both competition law and co-regulatory actions that are likely to be the enforcement method of choice for digital platform regulation.
In 2020-22, the world was plunged into a deep economic and social depression due to the COVID19 pandemic and recovery inflation, with broadband connectivity and Internet platforms ever more vital to enforced home workers. Even as legislatures introduce hard law to combat their particular favourite online harm, continued emphasis will focus on giant GAFAM platforms’ self-regulatory practices. In 2022, reforms to digital platform law were debated in parliaments including the European Parliament, United States Congress and British Parliamen. I argue that the approach taken to combatting problematic practices on digital platforms (so-called “Online Harms”) will be through co-regulation of CoCs, though with some direct enforcement notably of ‘app stores’ via competition law.
The article is structured as follows. In the Introduction, I explain the legislative reforms proposed and outline their scope. In the following Section, I explain the competition law actions already implemented and currently ongoing against platforms, notably app stores. In the third section, I explain how CoCs are used, taking as a case study disinformation regulation. In the final section, I conclude by explaining that it is CoCs utilised in both competition law and co-regulatory actions that are likely to be the enforcement method of choice for digital platform regulation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 34-66 |
| Number of pages | 33 |
| Journal | Journal of Law & Economic Regulation |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
