Regulating Digital Platforms as Infrastructures for Services of General Interest

Veranstaltungsnummer: 253296 – als .ics herunterladen

Currently several legislative proposals aimed at adapting the regulatory framework for digital platforms are being discussed at both national and European level. They have in common that they are primarily concerned with limiting the market power of the platforms and ensuring functioning competition. This is apparent at the European level with the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, and true for national initiatives like the latest amendment to the German Act against Restraints of Competition.

However, platform power is more than a competition problem: large digital platforms have become indispensable digital infrastructures for society. They are penetrating more and more areas of life where social participation, democracy, and the basic provision of essential services to the population are at stake. The question arises whether additional regulatory approaches are needed that do justice to the role of platforms as actors in the provision of services of general interest.

At our online roundtable you will hear form Prof. Dr. Christoph Busch the main result of his report for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (link in German, English version forthcoming) about regulating digital platforms. You are invited to follow the discuss with him and our other experts on questions like:

- How can fair access and the participation of all people in the new basic infrastructures of the digital society be ensured?

- What concrete obligations beyond competition law should be imposed on platforms?

- Which regulatory approaches can do justice to the infrastructure power of platforms?