Self-Preferencing in Markets with Vertically-Integrated Gatekeeper Platforms

Product selection in online marketplaces

“…This study is related to the wide literature on platforms (Armstrong, 2006; Belleflamme & Toulemonde, 2016; De Cornière & Taylor, 2019; Gautier et al, 2021; Hagiu et al, 2020; Hervas‐Drane & Shelegia, 2021; Padilla et al, 2020; Zennyo, 2020) and in particular to important recent works on the choice of marketplaces to act as retailers. Jiang et al (2011) study dynamic entry decisions by Amazon and focus on asymmetric information on demand and effort of sellers, showing, in line with our results, that Amazon can have an incentive to commit not to imitate 3P products to foster investment while monetizing on commission revenues.…”

“…21 21 The possibility of recommendation biases by platforms that do not fully monetize on sales of third party players has been emphasized also by De Cornière and Taylor (2019), and applies typically to ad‐funded platforms. Padilla et al (2020) show that excess entry may also occur for device‐funded platforms, but their result holds only in the absence of commissions on third party players. See also Tremblay (2020) on imperfect monetization by Amazon. …”

Self-Preferencing and Competitive Damages: A Focus on Exploitative Abuses

“…36 • • more saturated or more mature markets. 37 • • more or more likely options to personalize subscription prices (if they exist). 38 The more of these characteristics are given and the higher the extent of that is, the higher is the probability of the occurrence of potentially harmful self-preferencing accompanied by scope for exploitative abuse.…”

Voice Assistants as Gatekeepers for Consumption? - How Information Intermediaries Shape Competition

“…Thus, the company can build a complex mechanism for balancing profits in the markets, for example, making some services free for users (in monetary terms), and at the same time making a profit on the markets related to these services. Key concerns in situation with CMI are raised by anticompetitive use of dual role of DPA as a platform and as an intermediator/gatekeeper for connection with related markets where subsidiaries of DPAs providers are present (see Padilla et al 2020, Hagiu et al 2020), e.g. by self-preferencing of own products.…”

“…From structural perspective practice addressed in literature on dual role of intermediary, which states different results of welfare analysis depending on heterogeneity of consumers' and firm's goals, e.g. are users willing to pay more for better service or they are not value personalization as much as companies who invest in it (De Corniere & Taylor 2019); type of demand growth observed (Padilla et al 2020); absence of restrictions on replication of thirdparty's innovative products (Hagiu et al 2020). Lack of general approach for welfare analysis of dual role and self-preferencing leads to discussions on case-specific reasoning under which structural separation could be seen as fitting solution to fix problems (Khan 2019;Gilbert 2021).…”