Virtual Competition — Ariel Ezrachi, Maurice E

14/08/2018 Virtual Competition — Ariel Ezrachi, Maurice E. Stucke | Harvard University Press

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Ariel Ezrachi Cite This Book » Maurice E. Stucke AWARDS & ACCOLADES Add to Cart Related Subjects BUSINESS & ECONOMICS: General A Times Higher Product Details BUSINESS & ECONOMICS: E- Education Book of the Commerce: General Week, 2017 HARDCOVER LAW: Antitrust $29.95 • £21.95 • €27.00 LAW: Consumer ISBN 9780674545472 Publication: November 2016 Google Search Inside Go * Academic Trade 368 pages Share This 61/8 x 91/4 inches 3 halftones, 3 graphs Facebook Twitter World Pinterest Email

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Shoppers with Internet access and a bargain-hunting impulse can find a universe of products at their fingertips. In this thought-provoking exposé, Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke invite us to take a harder look at today’s app-assisted paradise of digital shopping. While consumers reap many benefits from online purchasing, the sophisticated algorithms and data-crunching that make browsing so convenient are also changing the nature of market competition, and not always for the better.

Computers colluding is one danger. Although long-standing laws prevent companies from fixing prices, data-driven algorithms can now quickly monitor competitors’ prices and adjust their own prices accordingly. So what is seemingly beneficial—increased price transparency—ironically can end up harming consumers. A second danger is behavioral discrimination. Here, companies track and profile consumers to get them to buy goods at the highest price they are willing to pay. The rise of super- platforms and their “frenemy” relationship with independent app developers raises a third danger. By controlling key platforms (such as the operating system of smartphones), data-driven monopolies dictate the flow of personal data and determine who gets to exploit potential buyers.

Virtual Competition raises timely questions. To what extent does the “invisible hand” still hold sway? In markets continually manipulated by bots and algorithms, is competitive pricing an illusion? Can our current laws protect consumers? The changing market reality is already shifting power into the hands of the few. Ezrachi and Stucke explore the resulting risks to competition, our democratic ideals, and our economic and overall well-being.

RELATED LINKS

On the podcast Cited, listen to Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke explain how online retailers use algorithms to invisibly ﬁx prices—and rip oﬀ consumers in the process

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674545472 1/3 14/08/2018 Virtual Competition — Ariel Ezrachi, Maurice E. Stucke | Harvard University Press At Harvard Business Review, read Ezrachi and Stucke’s explanation of the various ways that pricing algorithms (or “bots”) could form cartels—and raise prices At Wired, read Professors Ezrachi and Stucke’s warning—straight out of science ﬁction—that digital assistants like Siri and Alexa may be subtly inﬂuencing your decisions At Harvard Business Review, read Ezrachi and Stucke on the rebirth of the U.S. antitrust movement At IAI News (the newsletter of the Institute for Art and Ideas), read Ezrachi and Stucke on the dangers of oligarchy in the online marketplace Read a Fast Company discussion with Ezrachi about the ways in which “you are being exploited” Read Stucke on the downsides of letting a few tech companies monopolize our data at Harvard Business Review Read a Guardian piece on personalized pricing in the ride-share industry for which Stucke was consulted Read more about Ezrachi and Stucke’s concern for digital assistants at Factor Listen to Stucke discuss Virtual Competition on Wharton Business Radio’s The Digital Show Watch Ezrachi explain the growing need for regulation that aligns the interests of tech giants with the interests of consumers on the BBC’s Click Read Economist articles on the rise of the data economy and the collusion of price-bots that reference Ezrachi and Stucke’s work in Virtual Competition At the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, read Ezrachi and Stucke on the allure and the risks of personal digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Facebook’s M, and Amazon’s Alexa Watch Ezrachi and Stucke discuss work from Virtual Competition at the University of Chicago's “Is There a Concentration Problem in America?” conference, and a presentation from Stucke at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society At the New Yorker, read more about Ezrachi and Stucke’s work on the ways in which algorithms can behave as cartels At the University of Chicago’s ProMarket blog, read interviews with Ezrachi and Stucke on why the digital economy is less competitive than we think, how antitrust law could be used to protect consumers and encourage innovation, and connections between growing inequality and the concentration of power in the digital economy At the Oxford Business Law Blog, read Ezrachi and Stucke on how scraping and monopsony allow digital super-platforms to wield their power upstream as well as downstream

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