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User-Generated Data Network Effects and Market Competition Dynamics
Uri Y. Hacohen
Article

  The full text of this Article may be found here.

34 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 1 (2023).

Article by Uri Y. Hacohen*

 

ABSTRACT

 

[T]

his Article defines User-Generated Data (“UGD”) network effects, distinguishes them from the more familiar concept of traditional network effects, and explores their implications for market competition dynamics. It explains that UGD network effects produce various efficiencies for digital service providers (“data platforms”) by empowering their services’ optimization, personalization, and continuous diversification. In light of these efficiencies, competition dynamics in UGD-driven markets tend to be unstable and lead to the formation of dominant multi-industry conglomerates. These processes will enhance social welfare because they are natural and efficient. Conversely, countervailing UGD network effects also empower data platforms to detect and neutralize competitive threats, price discriminate among users, and manipulate users’ behaviors. The realization of these effects will result in inefficiencies, which will undermine social welfare. After a comprehensive analysis of conflicting economic forces, this Article sets the ground for informed policymaking. It suggests that emerging calls to aggravate antitrust enforcement and to “break up” Big Tech are ill-advised. Instead, this Article calls for policymakers to draw inspiration from traditional network industries’ public utility and open-access regulations.

 


* Professor of Law and Faculty Fellow at the Chief Justice Meir Shamgar Center for Digital Law and Innovation, The Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University. I would like to thank Professors Peter Menell, Niva Elkin-Koren, Michael Birnhack, Amir Khoury, Assaf Hamdani and the participants of the 8th Privacy, Cyber, and Technology Conference at Tel Aviv University, the 2021 Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at Cardozo Law School, and the Lab for Law, Data, and Digital Ethics at Bar-Ilan University.