As concentration in the tech sector faces scrutiny worldwide, Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force in 2024 and has emerged as an early test in the regulation of digital markets. Nearing the one-year anniversary of the DMA, KGI and the Yale Tobin Center gathered leading minds from academia, industry, and policy for the first DMA and Beyond conference. Attendees dissected the DMA’s early implementation, explored its ripple effects across global tech ecosystems, and debated the future blueprint for digital market regulation. The conference underscored just how pivotal both European regulation and US antitrust enforcement are to the current moment of geopolitical tumult.
Across two days, conversation topics ranged from DMA implementation experience to the nuances of imposing effective antitrust remedies in important digital markets like app stores and online search. Below are the key themes and insights from each of these conversations.
Keynotes
Andreas Schwab (European Parliament)
MEP Andreas Schwab, architect of the DMA, emphasized that the DMA represents more than a simple conflict of approaches to technology between the US and EU. Instead, it reflects a necessary progress beyond traditional competition law’s after-the-fact approach to scrutinizing monopoly power in digital markets. Schwab positioned the DMA as fundamentally pro-innovation and argued that in the modern data economy, access to data is as essential as daylight – making the DMA’s focus on expanding data access to smaller players particularly crucial.
Filomena Chirico (European Commission)
Filomena Chirico, lead enforcer of the DMA in the European Commission, outlined the DMA’s evolving implementation strategy, emphasizing its goals of boosting competitiveness and innovation. Early impacts include the emergence of alternative app stores, direct payment channels to apps, and the growth of smaller browsers. Chirico also acknowledged the global spread of similar regulations and stressed the importance of international coordination to achieve pro-competitive outcomes. Key implementation challenges center on understanding how underlying technologies operate, the design of user interfaces and monetization models, and involving users, stakeholders, and national regulators.
Anu Bradford (Columbia University)
Anu Bradford, an expert on EU law and digital regulation, challenged conventional narratives about European innovation, arguing that regulation is not the primary factor behind Europe’s innovation gap with the US. Instead, she pointed to structural differences in venture capital ecosystems, risk tolerance, and attraction of talent. Rather than deregulation, Bradford advocated for more structural reforms, such as in better integrating Europe’s single market, to enhance the continent’s innovation while maintaining strong protections for digital rights.
Research Talks
Self-Preferencing – Imke Reimers (Cornell) and Joel Waldfogel (U. of Minnesota); moderated by Fiona Scott Morton (Yale)
A key theme emerging from this panel was the evolving understanding of how to detect and measure self-preferencing in digital markets. While a new methodology developed by Imke Reimers and Joel Waldfogel shows promise in identifying when platforms prioritize their own products at the expense of consumer welfare, such analysis would benefit from greater access to platform data. Despite this potential barrier, new research shows that Amazon reduced the prominence of its own products in 2023 amid regulatory scrutiny in the United States (US) and the then-forthcoming DMA implementation deadline, suggesting that competition oversight can influence platform behavior even before formal enforcement.
Advertising – Cristobal Cheyre (Cornell) and Justin Katz (Harvard); moderated by Mihir Kshirsagar (Princeton)
This panel discussed the nuances of the relationship between competition, privacy, and advertising efficiency in digital markets. Research into the Facebook-Instagram merger highlighted how it may benefit advertising coordination by removing duplicative targeting of users across both platforms, though the welfare implications remain unclear given limited user substitution between Instagram and Facebook. Importantly, evidence from Apple’s App Tracking Transparency initiative demonstrated that strong privacy protections need not significantly compromise platform quality or app development, challenging assumptions about inevitable tradeoffs between protecting privacy and promoting innovation in digital markets.
Mobile App Ecosystems – Doh-Shin Jeon (Toulouse Economics) and Jithendra Palepu (Free Software Foundation Europe); moderated by Jacques Crémer (Toulouse Economics)
This panel surfaced the complex dynamics between competition and quality in mobile app markets. Contrary to conventional wisdom, research suggests that increased competition between greater numbers of app stores might lead to their taking higher commissions in order to degrade the app quality of competitors absent appropriate guardrails such as price regulation. Qualitative research also raised evidence of strategic gamesmanship in response to the DMA’s interoperability requirements, highlighting the need for robust enforcement to ensure meaningful compliance.
Search – Leon Musolff (UPenn) and Ananya Sen (Carnegie Mellon); moderated by Chiara Farronato (Harvard)
A central insight from this panel was that default placement, rather than quality alone, plays a crucial role in maintaining the market power of dominant search engines like Google. Research demonstrated that users’ quality perceptions of alternative search engines such as Bing improve significantly with direct exposure, suggesting that encouraging usage of smaller search engines followed by opportunities to actively choose defaults could enhance competition. Research also found that giving smaller search engines access to external data via application programming interfaces (APIs) may help burnish the quality of their services; however, the panel also cautioned that while this data sharing may help new entrants, alone it is insufficient as a remedy to level the playing field in online search.
Perspectives on Empirical Research – Hunt Allcott (Stanford) and Francesco Decarolis (Bocconi); moderated by Laura Edelson (Northeastern)
Discussion centered on the critical role of diverse data sources in understanding digital markets, while acknowledging the challenges and limitations of different research approaches. While platform collaboration enables valuable large-scale experiments, the panel emphasized that meaningful research can be conducted through observational studies and alternative data sources. There was agreement that regulatory frameworks should prioritize expanding researcher access to platform data, particularly regarding the impact of algorithmic recommendations on user behavior.
Institutional Considerations – Friso Bostoen (Tilburg), Gemma Petrie (Mozilla), and Alexandre de Streel (U. of Namur); moderated by Tom Wheeler (Brookings)
The panel highlighted crucial gaps in current regulatory frameworks, particularly regarding ecosystem entanglement where platforms simultaneously compete and cooperate across different interrelated digital markets. Experts emphasized the importance of careful attention to the crucial details of remedy design such as user interfaces and continuous testing of regulatory interventions, rather than leaving these implementation details to gatekeepers. Early experiences with DMA implementation have revealed the need for clearer institutional roles and improved compliance reporting mechanisms. These challenges are further complicated by shifting political dynamics around digital regulation on both sides of the Atlantic.
Policy Discussions
A Look into the Future – Andreas Schwab (European Parliament), Brian O’Kelley (Scope3), Max von Thun (Open Markets), Paula Blizzard (California Department of Justice), and Thomas DeMatteo (Senate Judiciary Committee); moderated by Fiona Scott Morton (Yale)
The panel highlighted the need for patience and resolve in digital market regulation. While the DMA’s full impact will take years to emerge, experts from across the political spectrum emphasized the importance of swift and comprehensive enforcement amid pushback from platforms. One theme was the relative advantages of structural remedies like divestitures over behavioral ones, such as their ease of administrability, particularly in areas like ad tech. Overall the discussion reinforced that robust competition policy supports innovation and a dynamic economy over the long term, with promoting interoperability emerging as a promising avenue for increasing competition.
Implementation and Enforcement – Avery Gardiner (Spotify), Filomena Chirico (European Commission), Francesco Decarolis (Bocconi), Mark Dempsey (ARTICLE 19), and Peter Boivin (General Motors); moderated by Alexandre de Streel (U. of Namur)
The panel illuminated many complex, early-stage challenges in DMA implementation, which will take several years to fully evaluate. Currently business users are eager to embrace new opportunities enabled by the law, but this is hindered by complicated compliance procedures and gatekeepers’ “whac-a-mole” tactics of using various fee schemes to externalize the costs of compliance. The discussion also highlighted how business users (such as app developers) fear retribution from gatekeepers on which they may depend, necessitating effective confidentiality. Finally, using litigation in Italy over Android Autou as an example, experts emphasized the challenge of distinguishing between genuine technical barriers and pretextual ones in implementation, suggesting a valuable role for independent technologists in this assessment.
International Perspectives – Anu Bradford (Columbia), Gunn Jiravuttipong (UC Berkeley), Hayeoon Kim (Korea Economic Institute of America), and Rod Sims (Australia National University); moderated by Jasper van den Boom (Heinrich Hein)
The panel explored the global diffusion of DMA-like competition laws around the world. While some countries face pushback, as evidenced by South Korea’s recent experience, the EU’s regulatory approach to competition continues to influence global markets through a Brussels Effect. The discussion highlighted how different jurisdictions have adopted regulations to local contexts while responding to international pressure, particularly from the US, with international solidarity emerging as a potential shield for smaller countries. For instance, Australia is forging ahead with a new digital competition regime that has support from both major parties and will likely resist efforts to stifle its development in the coming years.
US Litigation: Opportunities and Challenges – Laurel Kilgour (Economic Liberties), Michael Kades (Former Department of Justice), and Michael Schwartz (New York Attorney General); moderated by Leah Nylen (Bloomberg)
This conversation examined the complex landscape of US antitrust litigation against large technology companies. Several important upcoming trials were previewed, including the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Meta about its acquisition of Instagram and the Department of Justice’s litigation with Google focused on online search. Panelists discussed the apparent continuity between the Biden Administration and emerging Trump Administration’s approaches to antitrust enforcement and also noted the important role of states, whose Attorneys General can enforce federal and state competition laws. This new antitrust consensus signals continued robustness of US enforcement in digital markets for years to come.
Thank you to DMA and Beyond’s student notetakers – Aminah Koshul, Divya Goel, Elsie Gyan, Paty Ramirez, and Caleb Brown – who helped make this summary possible.
