EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

technological innovation in the realm of information technology cannot be overstated. The popularity of mobile internet and the development of smartphones have resulted in significant reductions in transaction costs, particularly for search and information. Transactions that would have failed in the past due to high transaction fees are now possible because to digital intermediation platforms. This specifically applies to private individual transactions. Furthermore, the widespread availability of mobile phones with GPS navigation enables many of today’s sharing economy applications. Another important driver of the rise of sharing economy services is the need to alleviate trust concerns. In P2P markets, where individuals routinely rent out their personal goods, trust is extremely vital. Trust difficulties may arise due to a lack of knowledge about the proposed transaction’s behaviour. Businesses use a range of techniques to overcome the market’s anonymity and generate transparency since information problems and the consequent trust difficulties may impede meaningful transactions. (Glavanits, 2007, pp. 65–77). This is accomplished through the use of evaluation and reputation systems. Sharing economy enterprises were able to draw on years of expertise with rating systems from early Internet pioneers like eBay in this regard. These systems are continually developing and reacting to the particular demands of the services in order to prevent manipulation and boost the informational value of evaluations. Other trust-building strategies include integrating user accounts in some sharing economy services with social network profiles (Funta, 2020a, pp. 193–205) and user identification verification. 3.2 Efficiency gains through digital intermediary platforms The digital mediation of products and services is central to the economic model of the sharing economy. Peer-to-peer service providers do not own the items in demand, nor do they provide the services in demand. Instead, they concentrate on a single component of the value chain: providing a digital intermediary platform for linking offers with demand, as well as any extra services. Digital communication via platforms can provide several efficiency gains (Schallbruch and Schweitzer and Wambach, 2019, pp. 33–38). Because this technology is inherently available to all market players, provided they are not prohibited from doing so by existing regulations, the following insights apply not only to the sharing economy or peer to-peer services, but to digital platforms in general (Botta, 2021, pp. 500–512). To begin, as previously stated, digital platforms enable the accomplishment of efficiency improvements by cutting transaction costs. The direct and transparent link between individual users makes it much easier to select a transaction partner. As a result, the cost of looking for and acquiring information is reduced. Many platforms offer extra features to help with transaction processing, such as central pricing and direct payment processing through the platform. Furthermore, such platforms make more efficient use of scarce resources possible. Increases in

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