Digital monopolies: Tasks and prospects of legislative antimonopoly regulation

The article deals with the issues of antimonopoly regulation of the activities of companies that are global digital giants. The activity of such companies is a kind of challenge for the antimonopoly authorities in all countries of the world. Against the background of the pandemic, digital platforms are gaining special importance and are rapidly increasing their market share. During the period of active development of the digital economy, which is based on the information technology and innovative solutions, issues arise that are not typical for traditional markets for goods and services. There is a need to develop a new system of antitrust regulation that can protect competition, but at the same time takes into account the interests of companies operating in digital markets. In the digital economy, the main categories of antimonopoly regulation are fundamentally changing: it is more difficult to determine whether the price is monopoly; the points of application of the above regulation are shifting, as more and more transactions take place online and it is impossible to determine a specific responsible person; it becomes more complicated to form an evidence base in an antitrust case.

Since the Internet overcomes both physical and legal boundaries, when building a regulatory system for the digital economy, it is necessary to take into account international experience and promote synchronization of the antitrust laws of those countries where the largest players in digital markets are based. Participants in economic activity do not try to compete in some commodity market, where are already many players, but generate new markets where they strive to become absolute monopolists. Today, “digital giants” have a large number of market power levers through the use and creation of new platforms, control and collection of data about users and product market participants, and the use of innovative methods of personalized marketing.

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