COMPETITION • EUROPEAN AND FRENCH LAW • Digital age
The highly innovative digital sector is characterized by the presence of the “Big Five” US tech giants, also known as GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) – with the French sometimes using the acronym GAFAIM to include IBM. These global digital platforms, which, through their technological expertise, the extent of their networks effects and the massive data collection and economies of scale they benefit from, have considerable market power leading to situations of ultra-dominance, and even monopolies. Able to take advantage of those convergence effects, the GAFAM platforms, active on several, often two-sided markets, have created ecosystems made possible by the complementarity of their services, network externalities and loyalty-building strategies which allow them to implement abusive practices (denial of access, tied sales, imposition of unfair transaction conditions or insufficient interoperability with competing products or services) – likely to eventually render consumers captive – most often in markets separate from the monopolized market.
