Exclusion in Digital Markets

This Article proceeds as follows: a short introduction to exclusion is offered in Part 2 for the purposes of laying down basic assumptions, an analytical framework, and the overall ideological tone of the article. Then Parts 3 to 6 discuss the relevant parameters in assessing when digital exclusion can be anticompetitive. In particular, Parts 3 and 4 look into the competitive conditions in the market and discuss mechanisms by which the supply and demand sides of markets react to exclusionary practices to limit them. Part 5 concerns itself with another condition of anticompetitive exclusion, namely the requirement that the power to exclude and the related exclusionary practice persist in time to a degree that regulatory or antitrust intervention becomes necessary. Part 6 illuminates the exclusion’s role as a business strategy in digital markets. The idea is that under the special conditions of digital markets, some exclusionary practices may constitute normal competition and not monopolization techniques, which would remove them from the range of offenses regulators or antitrust authorities would wish to pursue. Taken together these factors update and enrich the general analytical framework used to assess exclusion.