Governance of Data Sharing: a Law & Economics Proposal

Abstract

To prevent market tipping, which inhibits innovation, there is an urgent need to mandate sharing of user information in data-driven markets. Existing legal mechanisms to impose data sharing under EU competition law and data portability under the GDPR are not sufficient to tackle this problem. Mandated data sharing requires the design of a governance structure that combines elements of economically efficient centralization with legally necessary decentralization. We identify three feasible options. One is to centralize investigations and enforcement in a European Data Sharing Agency (EDSA), while decisionmaking power lies with National Competition Authorities in a Board of Supervisors. The second option is to set up a Data Sharing Cooperation Network coordinated through a European Data Sharing Board, with the National Competition Authority best placed to run the investigation adjudicating and enforcing the mandatory data-sharing decision across the EU. A third option is to mix both governance structures and to task national authorities to investigate and adjudicate and the EU-level EDSA with enforcement of data sharing.

Data access and regime competition: A case study of car data sharing in China

“…The European Commission has taken some steps in that direction, with proposals for Business-to-Government data sharing (B2G) when in the public interest (European Commission, 2020a), new regulation for data sharing platforms under the Digital Governance Act (European Commission, 2020c) and possibly wide-ranging horizontal B2B data sharing rules under a forthcoming Data Act. Some authors even propose that governments should be central players in B2B data sharing and the allocation of access rights (Prüfer and Graef, 2021). The perceived trade-off here is between exclusive private business control of commercial data versus the innovation and competition benefits of wider access to business data.…”