Economic Policy for Digital Attention Intermediaries
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Peitz, Martin Working Paper Economic policy for digital attention intermediaries ZEW Discussion Papers, No. 20-035 Provided in Cooperation with: ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Suggested Citation: Peitz, Martin (2020) : Economic policy for digital attention intermediaries, ZEW Discussion Papers, No. 20-035, ZEW - Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung, Mannheim This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/222412 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu // NO.20-035 | 07/2020 DISCUSSION PAPER // MARTIN PEITZ Economic Policy for Digital Attention Intermediaries Economic Policy for Digital Attention Intermediaries1 Martin Peitz University of Mannheim, MaCCI, and ZEW June 2020 Abstract: This report provides an overview on the economics of attention intermediaries. It addresses the following questions: What are the economics of attention intermediaries? For competition policy, how should markets be defined and market power of attention intermediaries be assessed? What theories of harm in merger control and abused of dominance possibly apply to attention intermediaries? The report also touches on consumer protection policies and other regulatory issues. Keywords: Attention intermediaries, platforms, market power, regulation, digital markets. 1 This report has benefitted from the author’s discussions with Serafino Abate, Alexandre de Streel, and Giorgio Monti. It has been commissioned by the GSMA but prepared in complete independence. The views expressed in this report are attributable only to the author; they do not necessarily reflect those of the GSMA or any of its members. 1 Table of content 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 6 2. Markets for attention and their masters ..................................................................................................... 10 2.1. Value creation and value capture around attention ........................................................................... 10 2.2 Some simple economics of attention markets .................................................................................... 11 Competing for attention .............................................................................................................................. 11 Attention as a scarce resource ..................................................................................................................... 14 Attention intermediaries with competing sellers ........................................................................................ 15 Attention intermediaries as recommenders ................................................................................................ 16 2.3 Attention intermediaries and the multi-markets approach ................................................................ 17 2.4 Defining markets for platform services provided by attention intermediaries .................................. 18 2.5 Consumer attention and personal digital assistants (PDA) ................................................................. 24 3. Market power of attention intermediaries and competition policy ............................................................ 24 3.1 Market power ..................................................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Indicators of market power ................................................................................................................. 27 Price and market share information ............................................................................................................ 27 Barriers to entry ........................................................................................................................................... 30 Data and attention as barriers to entry ....................................................................................................... 32 3.3 Exerting market power ........................................................................................................................ 33 3.4 Merger policy ...................................................................................................................................... 35 Notification thresholds ................................................................................................................................ 35 Social costs and benefits of mergers in the attention economy.................................................................. 36 Potential competition .................................................................................................................................. 39 Presumption of harm ................................................................................................................................... 41 3.5 Abuse of market power ....................................................................................................................... 41 Exclusionary practices and deterrence ........................................................................................................ 42 Exploitative practices ................................................................................................................................... 44 Burden and standard of proof ..................................................................................................................... 46 4. Consumer sovereignty and consumer protection policy ............................................................................. 47 4.1 Market failures and consumer protection .......................................................................................... 47 4.2 Who is a “consumer”? ......................................................................................................................... 48 4.3 Consumer protection issues in attention markets .............................................................................. 48 Asymmetric information .............................................................................................................................. 49 Consumer naïvete, limited attention, and limited cognition ....................................................................... 49 Consumer sovereignty and PDAs ................................................................................................................. 50 5. The open society, public policy, and the role of competition law ............................................................... 50 5.1 Policy goals in the open society .......................................................................................................... 50 5.2 Competition policy in the open society .............................................................................................. 51 2 Executive Summary Digital attention intermediaries engage consumers to spend time on their platform. Consumers are valuable because they make payments to the platform or because their attention and the data that come with them are valuable to the platform for other reasons. In particular, content providers and advertisers are keen to attract consumers and may therefore be willing to pay the intermediary to get access to consumer attention. Attention intermediaries compete for the time consumers spend on their platforms. If intermediaries monetize through advertising that consumers regard a nuisance, competition between attention intermediaries benefit consumers as the result of attention intermediaries reducing advertising volumes and improve content offers. They may also make advertising less intrusive. However, when a consumer’s attention span is limited and attention becomes a scarce resource, society may be better off if fewer attention intermediaries control this resource. To assess the effect of competition between attention intermediaries effects on other markets may need to be considered. In particular, with multiple attention intermediaries it may be excessively costly for a seller to deprive competitors of the consumer’s attention. Then more concentration among attention intermediaries tends to be bad for consumers as lack of seller competition drives up retail prices.