It’s all about data: Time for a data access regime for the sharing economy? 1

Abstract

In the sharing economy, competitively important user data is often controlled by a single platform. This is due to concentration tendencies in the market as well as a platform’s gatekeeper function regarding user groups and user data. Presently, a platform only has to grant access to its user data if the refusal to deal is considered an abuse of market power under competition law. The legal requirements in the EU for such a claim are, however, very narrow. Since EU competition law further follows a strict case-by-case approach, it is ill-suited to provide a systematic solution for data access issues. With data becoming increasingly important, particularly in view of Big Data and AI, the question thus arises whether regulators need to step in and provide for a statutory data access regime. In this context, the impact on innovation and competition of mandatory access to data should be carefully assessed. This paper argues that since user data is, in principle, collected by sharing platforms as a by-product without additional substantial investments, a sector-specific statutory data access regime could promote competition as well as innovation.