Digital technologies are an important means of seeking, receiving, and imparting information and exercising the right to freedom of expression. ARTICLE 19 considers that business actors in digital economy – such as device manufacturers, telecom operators, ISPs, online platforms – have responsibilities with regards to human rights. Those responsibilities reflect the critical role these businesses play in enabling individuals to exercise their right to freedom of expression.
With this submission, ARTICLE 19 aims to contribute to the work of the Digital Markets Taskforce by suggesting that competition law and policy, as well as pro-competitive ex ante regulation, shall have a role in shaping the contours of digital platforms responsibilities. We appreciate the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) invitation to submit comments to this call and hope they will be reflected in the recommendations of the CMA Taskforce to the Government.
The CMA’s call for information aims to collect evidence and input on ‘what intervention, if any, is necessary to protect and promote competition and innovation in digital markets and to address the anti-competitive effects that can arise from the exercise of market power in those markets’. ARTICLE 19 welcomes the initiative and urges the CMA not to limit its attention to economic elements, but to include in its assessment how the use (and misuse) of market power affects consumers’ human rights.